[aragornreborn]

Kaiserin, I was just wondering what you meant when you said that "a god with inner conflict is no god at all." But then later you said, "His being light in darkness, as well as his creation of all things from nothingness - these things do not suggest any evil in Eru, but present two complimentary and antagonistic forces."

First, I don't know Yin/Yang so well, so I can't comment on that much more. But I do think that Eru did not have any evil in Him whatsoever - for reasons I mentioned in my first post. And if by "two complimentary and antagonistic forces" you mean that He created opposites such as light and darkness, fire and ice, or whatever, I agree with you completely. I only disagree if you say evil is a part of Eru or was created by Him.

...Therefore nothing can be considered good?

It all depends on how you define good. I have chosen to define good as the attributes of God/Eru. The valar who remained faithful to Eru would be good in the sense that they obeyed His commands completely, but they would not be good as in perfect, omnipotent, etc. Humans (Elves, Dwarves, and the rest) could certainly never be perfect or omnipotent and often strayed from the will of Eru, so they could never be completely good. However, there were certainly some people who were more closely aligned to Eru's attributes. Those people weren't completely good, but they often did good things. So, for the sake of language and discussion, they could be called good or "good guys," so long as we all realize that they are neither perfect nor God (thus not completely good).

The statement about mastering the grain of evil here, I believe, does not refer to eradicating the evil within oneself, but rather choosing to act against that evil. A person's will to do good may overcome his desire to do evil, may it not? Think: Boromir. He may have had an evil desire for the Ring and for power, but he later chose to act against this. Still, one evil intention does not make anyone label him as "evil". His being a "good" person with an "evil" intention isn't unrealistic, it and creates interest in his character as well as the story.

Yes, at times a person's will to do good may overcome his desire to do evil. But let it never be said that at one point in time, a person is completely good. Like I said earlier, one may call someone a good character because he generally does the right thing, but he still isn't completely good and I don't think Tolkien would have wished to express otherwise.

I do not believe that Morgoth is the opposite of Eru. They are not equal - Eru created Morgoth, which places Eru as definitely greater. Still, they represent opposing (though not equal) forces. The deities themselves are unequal, but those forces of good and evil may have equal effects on Ea and its inhabitants.

I agree completely that Morgoth is not as powerful as Eru. I hope I didn't insinuate otherwise. And I would also agree that evil may even have a greater effect (or perhaps "hold" would be a better word) on Ea and its inhabitants than good (not necessairly forever, however). From what I read in the Silmarillion, Melkor "poisoned" the world (and its inhabitants) when he defied Eru and did his own thing. After he meddled with Eru's creation, evil was introduced to all and its mark was imprinted on everyone directly or indirectly. People had to work to do good. Their natural desire was to do evil and they were constantly exposed to it.