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Originally Posted by davem
Of course - all such speculations are.... Can God create a rock that is too heavy for him to move? etc. But what interests me is what it says about Eru & what Tolkien is saying about him here. Eru creates a world that is already flawed by Melkor's disonance & introduces the Children into it. Even if he knew that they would thank him in the end does that make it ok to do it? And even if it does, & even if it is the only way to achieve his perfect end he is still responsible for their suffering in that if he hadn't created them they would not have suffered. They suffer, but he does not. Unless, of course, his entry into Arda (cf Athrabeth) means that he too suffers as they do.
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Well this is, I suppose, the difference of Eru and the Christian God, whatever Tolkien wanted to draw that parallel true or not, Eru does scarcely intervene, where the Christian God does precisely what you said - he expresses solidarity and in the person of Christ he even participates on the suffering himself. I am not familiar with the Athrabeth, however, only from summarized version, so I don't know how close the parallel is in that point - you probably are not getting an answer on this from me.