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Originally Posted by davem
Rather like a doctor giving a gun to a man he knows will go out & shoot people, because he, the doctor, knows he will be able to fix up the victims & come out looking good as a result. Eru didn't have to allow Melkor into Arda at all. If he could be expelled at the end of the FA he could have been expelled before 'Ea!'
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Free will was guaranteed for them, as I already quoted:
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Originally Posted by Letter #153
Free Will is derivative, and is.'. only operative within provided circumstances; but in order that it may exist, it is necessary that the Author should guarantee it, whatever betides : sc. when it is 'against His Will', as we say, at any rate as it appears on a finite view. He does not stop or make 'unreal' sinful acts and their consequences.
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There also are the axani, the rules coming down from Eru; while the valar and the rest can do what they will, their actions have consequences and will be judged against the rules that were given to them.
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Who determines what the 'greater good' is?
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Eru, obviously.
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Melkor's desire to destroy Arda & reduce it to nothing is, to my mind, rather akin to Eru's wiping out of Numenor. Both Eru & Melkor's intention is to destroy what they don't like.
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Melkor would have destroyed everything no matter what. Numenor was destroyed only after it became the very seat of evil, where from oppression , torture, killing and blasphemy spread throughout all Middle Earth. These can hardly be compared.
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Either mass killing is bad whoever does it, or its acceptable.
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We have already been through this, in the Akallabeth thread. My position is that the whole of Numenor was utterly corrupted due to Sauron, and its healing was not possible at that time, and its existence meant danger to the rest of the Men; even at our level, I don't see what other better solution was possible in these circumstances. Tolkien also states in the letters that the supreme inventiveness of the creator can make even a divine punishment to be a divine gift; given what living in Numenor would have meant for its inhabitants, simply their death was, in itself, a gift, as they were facing an evil they could not overcome.
For all created spirits, who is to say what should be their role, and their life length? To me, the answer is obviously Eru.
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The only one who 'intended' Bilbo to find the ring originally was Tolkien.
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However, this is what the work is now, as Tolkien last intended for us to see it.