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Originally Posted by Nogrod
Sorry. I may have expressed myself poorly. That was by no means my intent. I meant more that how did Tolkien see his own creation, Eru? What did he wish to say with it?
But was Tolkien's Eru an omnipotent all-knowing God like that of christianity who knew it already what his creation would be up to and all that would follow it or was he more a Northern God who did what he deemed best and tried to handle the outcome as best he could? I mean surely one can't blame a God for creating something great that later turns evil if his intentions were good and he knew not all that would come from his creation?
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I think that's what he's trying to say - that this god (and maybe his God too, but who really knows) works in ways that to humble and
mere people can seem cruel. There's plenty of free will, even for the Valar, as Eru seems to sit back mosty and allow the inhabitants of his world to work things out for themselves. Eru only seems to interfere where his creations interfere with some of the basic orderings of life - e.g. Men trying to get to Valinor, whereas Eru has set out another path for Men. It's at once a frightening and thrilling prospect that people and leser gods have so much
scope in this world. Maybe it's telling us something about responsibility and taking it for ourselves seeing as Eru sticks his hand in so rarely? That would tie in with character development in LotR and how they all
learn things about themselves.
Maybe Eru knew what might happen - he might have had an inkling from Morgoth's discordant tunes at least, but wanted to see how things would play out?
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That's why I said that the protestantic interpretation partly tries to leave that side out... 
PS. Funny. It's only now that I find personating Eru as a he a bit uncomfortable... looking like Judaeo-Christian-Islamist Guy here in this discussion. Blessed be the Finninsh language where the pronoun s/he will not imply a gender allowing a God to be more literally abstract.
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'Tis a flamin' minefield, trying to pin down what this and that sect believes, which is why I;d rather go for what we can grasp hold of, i.e. looking at it from the text! And I like the sound of Finnish pronouns...maybe they are important in Tolkien's work as the language inspired him so much?