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Old 04-18-2004, 01:35 AM   #78
davem
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Clearly the 'Job question' is a difficult one - a 'surface' reading of the text has God & Satan playing a game, with Job as a pawn - Satan says to God 'I bet I can turn him against you', & God replies, 'Go on then, try it'. Job is then broken by Satan while he & God watch from a safe distance, like a couple of vivisectionists testing a lab rat. When its all over, & Job has lost everything, including his wife & children, God pops up, tells him he's an ignorant, ungrateful worm, but then, in His infinite mercy, decides He'll 'forgive' him & gives him a new family & replaces his livestock.

So, we have the impression of a God who doesn't really care about anything but His own majesty, & plays vicious games with His children's lives.

This, I suppose, was where I was coming from with my original criticism of Eru's treatment of Frodo. Frodo is used by Eru to help get rid of Sauron. He is simply used as a pawn in a 'game' between Eru & first Melkor, then Sauron. Frodo is broken as a result, but Eru, in His infinite mercy, takes Frodo off into the West & fixes him up.

Paul states 'All have sinned, & all have fallen short of the glory of God'. So, did Tolkien feel this statement applied in Middle Earth? If so, then Frodo has sinned. But then we are left with the question of what Frodo's 'sin' actually was. Are we talking about 'original' sin, or individual sin?

If it was 'original' sin, then why should Frodo suffer more than anyone else, be broken more completely, suffer more absolutely? If it is an 'individual' sin, then that sin must be more severe than any other, if the consequence is more severe.

But now we are back to your point - we cannot look at things in this way, because suffering cannot be 'explained' or accounted for logically, or in terms of credits & debits totted up & punishment assigned. Suffering is a fact, 'sin' - at least 'original' sin - is a fact, part of the way things are in the world. Suffering can only be transcended, climbed above, like the storm in Jung's analogy, & the reasons for it left behind. We have to leave suffering behind, as God, in' forgiving' our sins, is effectively leaving them behind, so that in the end we can say 'suffering' was , 'sin' was.

To bring in the idea of 'enchantment' from the 'canonicity' thread, enchantment is what happens when suddenly, for a moment, we step out of the Shadowlands into the Light, out of galadhremmin ennorath - 'tree tangled Middle Earth', & see suddenly the light of the stars of Elbereth. So, 'enchantment' in this sense is not a delusion, but a sudden clear sight of the truth - which we here find in Tolkien's secondary world. The truth 'enchants' us, whether the light that suddenly shines on us has its source in this world or in Middle Earth. In the Shadowlands, in tree tangled Middle Earth we stumble blindly in the dark, & 'sin' & suffer. Frodo, at the end, will not so much be 'healed' as 'enchanted'.

But the 'living happily ever after', as we see in Frodo's story, takes place beyond this world, because here the light shines fitfully, & the enchantment passes often before we realise we were enchanted.

And, yes, I realise I've now adopted the polar opposite position to the one I started out with!
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