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Originally Posted by davem
There's no actual objective standard of Good which can be defined & which beings, from Eru down, can be judged by?
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In short, no, because it is humanly impossible to define such a standard or to apply it. Even if one would have such a desire, to judge God, which I personally don't, regardless the context, how could such a thing be possible? How could the finite devise any sort of system by which to measure morality at transcendental level? I don't see how. In our case too, only Eru could judge Eru; anything else done at human level would satisfy a barren curiosity, which, due to its unwarranted reductionism and severe lack of information, wouldn't meet our own standards of relevancy. If one wants to fallaciously "approximate" Eru as just another character and judge him as such then .... whatever. We are warned against judging even Manwe, (a finite being and thus inherently faulted) since we don't have his wisdom, his knowledge of the Music, and his recourse to Eru. I share Tolkien's opinion that we can't even judge a finite being (such as Gollum), at the absolute level, since this would be to investigate "Goddes privite". Going even beyond these seems ...
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Maybe it can't be understood in the way he wanted it to be understood, but its simply nonsense to say LotR can't be understood (ie is nonsensical or meaningless) by a reader unfamiliar with The Sil.
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Again, it all comes down to the personal standard of relevancy, doesn't it? But there are many references, spiritual or historical, in the text or the appendices, that require the larger story to be properly understood, even if the epic line in itself is accessible.