Quote:
Originally Posted by Raynor
We have little if any idea of how God would relate to a human, other than infinite compassion and capability to turn even a (or any) " divine punishment" into a "divine gift", as Tolkien mentioned in the letters. .
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So you accept that 'God' (or Eru in this case) will, by his nature, behave with "infinite compassion and capability to turn even a (or any) " divine punishment" into a "divine gift"". Hence there is a certain 'objective' standard by which we can judge the actions of Eru - if at any point he displays other than 'infinite compassion' he would be behaving out of character, & his behaviour would not be 'Good'. 'Callous disregard' is 'Evil'. Thus we can say that Eru is 'Good' because he displays, among other things, 'Infinite Compassion' & that Morgoth is 'Evil' because he displays 'Callous Disregard'.
And, apart from primacy of existence & innate power, we can say that Eru is 'morally superior' to Melkor/Morgoth because his behaviour corresponds to an objective standard of Goodness which includes 'Infinite Compassion', & that Morgoth is immoral because his behaviour corresponds to an objective standard of Badness/Evil which includes 'Callous Disregard'. Hence, an objective standard is being used to judge the Goodness of Eru & the wickedness of Morgoth, & we are
not simply saying 'whatever Eru does is good because Eru does it'. We
require Eru to display 'Infinite Compassion' if we are to accept him as 'Good' (even if we cannot fully understand the way that 'Infinite Compassion' works through in time). Or, in short, 'Infinite Compassion' is a standard of judgement we apply in judging Eru to be 'Good'.
Or to put it another way, if you were a Man, or Elf in M-e confronted by Eru & Morgoth, both claiming to be the Supreme Being, & with no knowledge of who they were, how would you determine which one was Good & which Evil if you could not apply an objective standard of Good/Evil?