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Originally Posted by Tar-Telperien
Odd. Because when I reread the earliest version of the Ainulindalë some time ago, my breath was taken away by how different Eru's character was. If anything, Ilúvatar was the character who changed the most over the varying traditions of that story. In the first version, he preached long messages about how Melkor's "ugliness" would bring forth "beauty" and that it would be the thing that made the Music most worthwhile. We are basically given a long sermon on theodicy in the first version. But as time goes on, Tolkien takes out huge sections of Eru's dialogue, making him a much more aloof figure whose motives are far more unclear. If Eru seems one-sided and overly mysterious, it's fairly obviously because Tolkien came to want him to be that way. He was actually more like the Christian God in the beginning than he afterwards became. Eru became more unique of a figure, not less of one.
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What it seems to do is make him more of a cypher than he originally was. If Tolkien is trying to distinguish Eru from God (& as I noted before these changes seem to correspond exactly to the period of the 20's when 'out of wickedness & sloth' he almost ceased to practice his religion) then we have him seeking to produce a non Christian deity who will keep the mythology 'monotheistic' & stop it being 'dualistic' while removing him to such a distance that he effectively becomes little more than a get out of jail free card.
The myths Tolkien loved are effectively both polytheistic & dualistic & the myth he creates is, in fact, exactly the same. Its as if he feels for philodsophical reasons he must keep a 'God' figure, but he wants to remove him as far as possible from the work. He wants to have his cake & eat it. I suppose a more complex Eru would have required him to be a more active participant in the story. Yet at the end (Athrabeth) he seems to want him to be just that.
Ok, in other words, I accept that what you say is correct - except I'd argue that he doesn't so much develop the character as remove the little 'character' that he seems to have. After that he seems to lose interest in him at all. I wonder whether the changes are for philosophical or narrative reasons?