[Raynor]

I don't see that we're ever told what his motivations are, why he does what he does or what the point of anything is as far as he's concerned - his main concern seems to be his own 'glory' & making sure everyone does as they're told.

We are told, but you disregard my quotes. I don't know if this is going anywhere.

No - that he has to explain his character, motivations & provide convincing justifications for his actions.

You genuinely expect that from a religious person? To put God in a frame? May I ask if you are theist?

I think you lose sight of spiritual meaning the myth has for Tolkien, that of returning us to an un-fallen state, of a more special communion. I hardly see how this can be achieved by rationalising God. Of course, that may not suit some critics. They way Eru is presented is not a literary flaw, but a religious necessity; I would venture so far as to say even a philosophical one - who can put transcendence into words?

What I know from the data supplied is that Eru is an undeveloped figure whose behaviour is not properly explained & that is what I'm judging.

How come you hold on so much to judging, in a case where you also state that there isn't enough information? What sort of validity would your conclusion have? At most, literary; you can reduce the reality of this work's Creator to a finite character, and state that he is underdeveloped, and could be fine, to someone who could swallow this reduction (which I consider impossible). But you cannot draw conclusions, moral or otherwise, if you don't know enough; to do so seems, to me, to be an empty exercise.

I think the knots Tolkien ties himself in over Manwe's treatment of Melkor (as set out in Osanwe Kenta) shows that he realised that Manwe's behaviour made absolutely no sense (& I have to say that the 'explanation' he comes up with didn't convince me for a minute)

You mean Manwe would have made more sense if he would have kept Melkor indefinitely, despite the initial judgement? What sort of justice is that?? What could have justified such an arbitrary change of thought? Please explain.

Only in the beginning. Its clear that by the time of his fall he was far from superior.

Which doesn't address in the least my (then) previous argument and my explanation, hence my feeling it is a red herring: the amount of power he had at the end of the first age has no relevance to the amount of power he had at the time, far superior to the valar's, which he used it to corrupt Arda. To reiterate my argument, that corruptive power could not have been annihilated by the valar, only by Eru.

So when Tolkien stated that Arda was created with the potential for, if not the inevitability of, a fall inherent in it, he meant it was created without that potential for a bit & then the potential was added in after that - so Eru not only could, but actually did, create Arda without that potential, but then introduced it in? Sorry, but i'm not sure that stands up...

I don't know why you feign you don't know the difference between a potential and actualising that potential. The corruption of Arda existed as a potential, as a possibility, ever since the music, and it became a reality of Arda, with the coming of Melkor and the making of Utumno.

is an entirely different thing to saying "He will not suffer Himself to be deprived of any of His own?

It is not entirely different, but is not logically sound. You cannot use unwarranted generalisation in a debate, esspecially when in the quote, and in the story, "his own" and enemy are qualitatively different, on all grounds, esspecially the moral one. To introduce such a qualifier requires more than a personal desire for it to be accepted.

Oh, come on - the simplest & most obvious interpretation of Tolkien's response is that he was referring to Eru, the 'God' of M-e.

G: Now this seems to me to be somewhat like Tennyson's "the old order changeth, yielding place to new, and God fulfills himself in many ways". Where is God in The Lord of the Rings?

T: He's mentioned once or twice.

G: Is he the One?...

T: The One, yes.

G: Are you a theist?

T: Oh, I'm a Roman Catholic. Devout Roman Catholic.

If you really believe that God here is reffered to by Tolkien only as Eru, I really don't know how to convince you; you seem to disregard again the spiritual underlying of his myth making.