The halls of mandos and elvish "free will"

[mark12_30]

Rimbaud,

A delicious topic.

You said:

If this were true, then the moment of creation is as endless as all other moments - all events are for that deity.

I would agree with this. (To me it is one of the deep mysteries.)

If the deity is not simply 'setting the wheels in motion' but is existent at all times simultaneously then events do not stem from the actions of that deity but rather form partof that deity at any given 'time'.

I would disagree with, or at least question, this. The scriptures (which anchor me, I hope this does not offend you) say that In Him we ( and all of creation) live and move and have our being. It does not say that all creation is part of him. In a sense, he is a container-- one who sustains what he contains, and is capable of guiding what he sustains, but at times (most of the time) chooses to watch, and wait to be invited to participate in the sequence of events. Yes, all events ARE for him. Simultaneously, he waits for us to ask him to join us.
This is certainly a paradox, and yet it is one of the most important paradoxes that I know, for it makes Free Will mean something, and it makes God the Ultimate Gentleman, forcing himself on no one.
So often when injustice occurs, we hear the cry, "Where is God?" My answer would be, "Waiting to be invited. He will not, and does not, presume, though infinite power be at his mighty fingertips."
He is the only being who is incorrupted by absolute power.

Now-- having said all that-- I have also learned more from Tolkien in this sense about the wonder of the incarnation. It's no wonder that Tolkien describes the Incarnation as the eucatastrophe of the Old Convenant. The mystery of the Incarnation is that suddenly, the second person of the Trinity, who was outside time, for whom all events ARE, suddenly stepped inside of time and became subject to it, was conceived as an embryo, born as an infant, subjected to mortality and death, and resurrection. The second person of the Trinity, now, in the form of the Messiah, is subject to time.

Like Tolkien, I am amazed.

Grace and peace, --Helen