[Child of the 7th Age]

I'll agree with all of this (and the rest, actually )! I think that's the crucial point (even in this world, let alone the secondary one created by Tolkien) - that you cannot assign good/bad to the creator. A creator just is. It's from living in and experiencing the world as given to them that the peoples learn what is right and what is wrong.

Lal,

Interesting. I can definitely understand how a person reading LotR (or viewing the real world) would feel that way. In a real sense, there is no right or wrong way to view Eru given Tolkien's stated preference for "applicability" in terms of his readers and the experiences they bring to the text. Plus, Eru's position in Middle-earth is not clear cut. There are ambiguities and layers of contradiction, at least partially brought on by Tolkien's "contrasistency": his conflicting desires about the role of religion in a subcreated world. We can find quotations that emphasize the author's preference to keep religion out of the subcreated world, and others that suggest the opposite: that Tolkien incorporated Catholic elements within the revisions of the text.

Still, I keep coming back to one queston. Is it possible to have an "absolute" sense of right and wrong if that choice is defined solely in the experiences of the individual character rather than an outside agent? I am using the term agent loosely here, whether a god or another absolute construct like that envisioned by Plato. Your post suggests that morality and its application lie solely within the province of the individual. Yet the one thing I've always felt in Lord of the Rings is that Tolkien did not regard moral virtues as a matter of subjective preference or social norm. There is good and there is evil: an objective morality that may become blurred in application but that constitutes a non-changing framework that gives meaning to everything Tolkien writes.

Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men.

To me, this says it all. If morality comes solely from "living in and experiencing the world", you would have more than one standard since people bring such diverse experiences and backgrounds to this task. In our own world, for example, there have been cultures that accept the validity of suicide, like classical Roman or Japanese, and others like Christianity that do not. In Tolkien's world, things are clearer. There are instances where characters sacrifice themselves to save others and Aragorn is able to order the hour of his own death, but that is different from suicide. When the deranged Turin initially tries to take his own life, he is stopped by his companion. Turin's later suicide and that of his sister Nienor who carries an unborn child (modeled on the Kalevala) as well as the scenes with Denethor are depicted in such a way that the deeds are both moving and horrific. There is no suggestion of honor. (Lost Tales II, 115-116, suggests that there will be a redemption for turin and Nienor at the end of the world.)

Given what I know about the author, I can not help but feel that an objective morality exists in Arda and that it is grounded on some level in Tolkien's personal theology. In that sense, I am less willing to let Eru off the hook than you are. I went back and reread some of the Numenor material and was struck by how debased the culture had become: hauling off men into slavery from Middle-earth, the imposition of blood sacrifice, willful disobedience to the dictates of the ban. If I had been one of the occupants of the lands across the Sea, I would have cheered the drowning of Numenor as it would have brought some hope of relief. It is possible to say that all the men and women in Numenor were responsible for the evil. Even if these people did not actually foment evil, they stood by and did nothing when human sacrifices took place. (This assumes that there is some kind of absolute standard that says human sacrifice is wrong.) But where does that leave the children?

Tolkien does not tell us what happens to men after their death, only that they go beyond the circles of the world. If you assume that what happens to an innocent child is horrific, then there is clearly no justice. If you assume a different and more favorable ending for the innocent child, then you might argue that, by removing the child from the world, Eru is doing them a favor....that there is actually no way they could grow up in Numenor and not be corrupted by Sauron and the Ring. At least this way, they are removed from the mess and are able to keep their moral compass.

Still, that's an uncomfortable argument for me to make. I think the true answer can only be that, in a world corrupted by evil, which Middle-earth clearly was, there can be an absolute standard for good and evil but things get mightily blurred in the application. Simply it is impossible to have an absolutely good act, even by Eru, in a world where evil is woven into the fabric of existence.

Numenor had clearly become a blight on the world: a force for evil that was destroying not only the lives of its own inhabitants but those across the Sea whom they imperiously ruled. If Eru destroyed only the attacking fleet, that blight would still be there, capable of rejuvenating and expanding outward. Whatever action is taken--destroying the island or not destroying it, the evil will not go away. On the one hand you have the continuing existence of an evil Numenor and on the other hand you have innocent children killed. The only answer seems to be that you weigh one evil against another and make a choice based on that, taking the path that will eventually lead to the greatest healing.

As men, we certainly do not have the knowlege that would allow us to do this cosmic weighing or make a choice. (I too do not believe in capital punishment.) But Eru is in a different position and could possibly have made such a choice with clear understanding of its consequences. This is essentially a no-win situation. Whatever Eru does, there will be evil consequences. He is trapped by his own creation and the latitude he has given to his children. What it comes down to in terms of the individual is "trust". Some readers "trust" Eru enough to believe that his choice was just. For them it is not an atrocity--just a sad, sad choice. For others, the action by Eru can only be seen as an amoral or immoral one because there were certainly bad consequences and he had foreknowlege of those. Rather than a choice, it becomes an atrocity. There is no easy answer here.