Of Evil, Free will, and Fate (from 'Gollum')

[Thenamir]

Kalessin

For example, an African-American slave that attempted to escape, or resisted enslavement with violence, may indeed have committed a crime against the legislature and office, and even against the will of the majority, over and above any harm to those particular individuals attempting to enslave him.

Forgive me. I never intended to imply that the will of the majority is an infallible judge of what is right. Someone once said that pure democracy is 3 wolves and a sheep voting on dinner. Your example of slavery is an excellent case in point. But it does show rather well that there is a "higher standard", a better yardstick, that the will of the majority is hardly the last word in justice.

Enter Eru. The principles set down by an all-knowing Being of pure benevolence, One Who seeks only the greatest good for the universe as a whole and each individual in particular, can not be judged on the same level as laws made by limited and fallible men. There is no higher standard.

In the case yo mention of a resisting or escaping slave, he would be prosecuted by the laws of the day and found guilty of disobeying an unjust law. Laws change. The Creator does not. Slavery was wrong from the get-go by the Highest Standard, but men failed to see it. The 20-20 hindsight provided by history vindicates the actions of those who fought slavery.

As an aside. it is interesting that you mention the Biblical quotes ("rendering unto Caesar" etc.), because there is a particularly applicable principle in the book of Acts. When the disciples of Christ were given an unjust command by the lawful authorities of the day, they responded, "We must obey God rather than men."

True justice, as you say, will judge the intentions (the "heart") of the guilty. To apply this to my prior posts, let me amend the scenario thusly. If a man punches a policeman, he is already guilty of the crime of assault against a person -- this much is given. If the pugilistic man is unaware that the victim is a policeman, and not just a policeman but one on-duty and acting in the lawful course of his duties, then true justice will not convict the man of the more serious crime of assaulting a police officer.

On the other hand, if the man does know that the man being punched is a policeman, and is punching him with the purpose of resisting or hindering him from his just and lawful purposes, then true justice will convict him of figuratively punching the hundreds or thousands of people whose collective will gives the policeman his authority. I think the best word is rebellion.

To tie this all together, there can be no question that Melkor and Sauron knew just exactly Who they were rebelling against. This makes their crime heinous indeed.

Lastly, I do not claim to have the last word on the free-will/predestination debate -- I don't even know if I properly grasp the question in all its complexity. All I have is a framework that explains enough for me not to worry about the question. And enough faith to hope that the Creator does not deceive when he makes everyone think that they are independent wills, choosing their actions.

Thanks, Kalessin, for the interesting debate.

[Son of Númenor]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

I don't think that, in a Judeo-Christian-Tolkienian context, the origin of evil can be any further reduced than to free will. Free will is a strange and in some ways paradoxical concept, but one thing it does very well is act as a metaphysical device for the creation of evil. The paradox lies, I think, not in the generation of evil by free will, but in the generation of free will by supreme good. This is in my opinion an unanswerable question, and an unresolved contradiction. If you're going to suspend disbelief and accept Tolkien's world though (or, I would add, Judeo-Christian theology), you simply have to accept it.

I have often tried in vain to grapple with the concept of free will as something bestowed upon mankind by a Creator. I wonder the extent to which Tolkien felt the weight of the paradox while creating Middle-earth and, more importantly, while contemplating his own faith. I gather (possibly entirely inaccurately) from the Legendarium and Letters that he considers the Almighty capable of creating a will separate of His own, for the simple fact that he is omnipotent in the purest possible sense of the word. Many find this paradoxical simply because, logically, the Creator must create inherently of Himself; where would any separate building blocks come from?

The old Vedic concepts of Brahman and Purusha seem particularly pertinent to any discussion of will (though how pertinent they are to Middle-earth is debatable). Forgive me, Hindu Downers, if my knowledge of the Vedas proves skewed. Purusha, to my understanding, is deemed by the Vedas to be the Ultimate Self (Atman): it encompasses -- is -- everything. Brahman is the 'physical' manifestation of Purusha: a split in the Self occurs literally infinitely, on an infinite planes, wherein Brahman becomes the physically limited entity 'the universe'.

The Vedas posit that each of us is none other than the Purusha, and that individual egos merely reflect a 'dream' of Purusha, a stream of consciousness in the physical Brahman which feels it is its own Atman because it is given a name and told that it is, for example, 'you', 'him', 'John', 'my son', 'his brother', etc. and that the collection of ever-dividing and -dying cells that forms the physical body is 'your body', or even is 'you'. So on some level every unenlightened person -- that is, everyone who has not rid himself of ego and recognized himself as the All-One -- is really just Purusha playing games with Itself, dreaming something that is not inherently 'real'. Although the leaps of faith that those of us who remain unenlightened have to take in order to believe that God is playing mind games with himself are staggering, this model explains free will rationally in the sense that it is logical within the confines of the Vedic canon.

How would Tolkien react to this notion? Does the concept of the All-Knowing Creator as, on some level, thinking wrongly that he is creating something that inherently Not Himself appalling to Catholics? How would he react to a fan asking of him, 'Is Gollum, on some level, Eru?' (These questions are not rhetorical, by the way. Although none here can speak on Tolkien's behalf, there are some who are far more versed in Catholic canon -- and in the Professor's own beliefs as laid down in his extensive body of work -- than I.)

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Son of Númenor

How would Tolkien react to this notion? Does the concept of the All-Knowing Creator as, on some level, thinking wrongly that he is creating something that inherently Not Himself appalling to Catholics? How would he react to a fan asking of him, 'Is Gollum, on some level, Eru?' (These questions are not rhetorical, by the way. Although none here can speak on Tolkien's behalf, there are some who are far more versed in Catholic canon -- and in the Professor's own beliefs as laid down in his extensive body of work -- than I.)

As you say, none here can speak on Tolkien's behalf, but as a professor (not a teacher, but one who professes) the same faith as the Master, I'll throw in my two bits about what I'm thinking.

You ask if an All-Powerful Creator thinking wrongly about something different than Himself is an idea that appalls Catholics. My answer is that it shouldn't.

According to Catholic belief, the REASON God created Mankind, and the whole world to sustain it, is that God desired other beings to Love and to Love Him. God, being God, can do whatever He wants. He is, in other words, omnipotent.

Since omnipotence is not limited by anything, God could create, were He to want to, a world that is totally opposed to all that we consider right and good. He does NOT do this, however, because of the love which He bears. God loves us, and wants us to love Him in return, so the natural world He creates is one in which love is a powerful force, in which love is naturally able to function.

(And yet, one could say, the very reason love is so powerful is that it is a SUPERnatural force, a force that is not inherently found in creation, and is thus so powerful simply because it comes from God.)

However, in order for love to be true love, it must come freely. Hence, free will. God wanted true, complete, free love. Love, in other words, that parallels the love He has for us. It was natural and necessary therefore that those who were to be the recipients of His love, and who were to love Him in return: us humans, be given the free will to choose to love- or to choose not to love.

Although many people choose to love, this free will means, and has always meant, that people would choose NOT to love, which is the cause of much of the EVIL in this world.

So, the short answer is that Catholics do NOT find the idea of God creating beings that choose to do evil abhorent.



How would Tolkien react to someone saying that, on some level, Gollum is Eru? To be honest, I think he would agree.

According to Christian faith, we are all called to treat every one of our friends and neighbours as Christ- as God. What we do to them, we do to God. What we fail to do, we fail to do to God.

On a similar note, God uses each and every one of us as His instruments, to perform his works on earth.

However, your original meaning of the question here seems to be "What would Tolkien say if you said that Eru, as Gollum's creator, naturally exhibits Gollum's less-than-savoury tendencies". In this case, I think that Tolkien would have to disagree with you.

Again, this goes back to the idea of free will. Gollum's more abhorent natures are the results of him choosing NOT to do Eru's (God's) work, to love. His less-than-pleasing attributes are the hallmarks of his exercising his free will AWAY from his creator, rather than indications of him being the work of that same creator.

Anyway, I hope I got the gist of the questions right, and I hope that my Catholic-based view of Tolkien's opinions doesn't overly offend anyone. I'm just stating what appears to me to be the case.