[Gothmog]

SpM:

Holy Moley! It's the return of the dreaded Capitals!!

I can't ignore this opportunity to use a quote that was supposed to be in my next sig:

Capital letters were always the best way of dealing with things you didn't have a good answer to.

~Douglas Adams.

It's so true! Just look at the title of this thread; Is Eru God? And do we have a good answer? No!

Back to the Question As some of us interpret Fordim's question as what Tokien meant Eru to be, I believe that question can not be answered by us. As Formendacil said, who are we to know what Tolkien was doing? Therefor that question is quite meaningless to me. The question what do you think Tolkien meant or or do you think Eru is God is the only questions we can answer, and that's up to each and everybody.

I doesn't matter how many differences or similarities we find between Illuvatar and the Christian God. We can't decide what Tolkien intended them to mean, if it meant anything. The fact that God inspired the creation of Eru is obvious, but where the limit of inspirated by and being God is drawn is quite diffuse.

And we must remember that what Prof. T tried to create was not a historical document but a mythology. If we say that Eru is God, is Zeus God? Or Odin? I know there's a difference as Eru is a god from fiction, but he was still supposed to be a god of an alternative mythology.

To go in on details in the behaviour or apperance of God and Eru is, according to me, wrong in discussing this question. There will always be similarities and differences. It's better to look at it from a wider perspective, not compare them act by act. And overall, there's a lot of thing alike for the two, but that's only natural. To say that they're the same because of that is impossible. And to say that Tolkien must have created Eru as the image of God just because of his own religious believes is a questionable reasoning. I bet there's a lot of christian writers out there who has created gods that do not resemble God. Folwren described his problems of creating a god that was not God in his post, but still he wants someone like him. God is our view of a good God of obvious reasons and when trying to create a good god, he ends up as something not to far away from our own. That, I believe, was the case in Tokien's god.

Fordim:

That's why I have no problem seeing Eru as Tolkien's version of God

Does that make him God? Again, that depends on the question. And is he Tolkien's version of God or a good god in general?