Inherent Evil

[Lord of Angmar]

Notice the "he is also like". This is telling me that Gwaihir's view is that the evil itself, which Melkor came to be was originally evil within Eru. It did not dominate Eru as it did Melkor, but evil started within Eru.

I believe that yes, evil did start with Eru in a sense - in a sense, mind you. I personally am of the opinion that it was Eru Iluvatar who first conceived of the idea of evil, of the ability of others to rebel against his own will, since he did endow each of his creations with free will. Since Iluvatar would never act on this idea (how could he?), he did not conceive of any of his children acting on it. When Melkor acted on the thought of rebellion, he changed Arda forever, corrupting Iluvatar's initial designs. Iluvatar never intended for evil to become an entity in Arda, but Melkor's actions led to Iluvatar fully understanding the concept of evil and thus fully understanding the mind of Melkor.

This is just my crazy idea. I haven't had much sleep recently, so it may be far from an intellectual response. [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img] Cheers