And Eru Smiled

[lindil]

By and large I agree Iarwain, and welcome to the Downs Tuor.

However, I would nitpick the following:

it seems to me that within M-E, Arda, Ea, etc. Eru is both omnipotent and omniscient, and existence as a whole is within his sphere of influence

Eru is not or perhaps it would be better to say that He rarely exercises omnipotence over the freewill of his children.

I rather imagine you already agree with this but I just wanted to underscore it.

[Boromir88]

The point I have noticed is that no matter how "good" someone is there is always that touch of evil in them. And no matter how "evil" someone is there is always good in them.

You have the most powerful "good" people I can come up with right now, just from LOTR here, umm, Galadriel and Gandalf. Galadriel and Gandalf both made it clear that they were "tempted by the ring," now they passed their "tests" and prevailed, but the "temptation" was the little bit of "evil" they have in them. We can make the assumption Bombadil is all good, since he's not persuaded by the ring at all, and the ring has no effect on him. If you ask me Bombadil really couldn't of been Eru, no Istari or Valar, debatable whether he is Maia or Tolkien. Famous Maiar's in the stories fell to evil, not all Maiars were accounted for but seems like Maiar's would be tempted by greed and power. Which leaves me to say Bombadil is Tolkien writing himself into the stories. Anyway I'm getting too far off track.

This leads me to my second point that evil cannot survive without good. No one is born "evil," a 6 month year old isn't going to say "i'm going to murder 11 million people later on in life." Everyone at one point in time was "good." It was their decisions later on, their choices, and their greed, that led them to become evil. So Evil would not exist if it wasn't for good. And it seems like good can't live without evil. Even after all the good years with Elessar as king, I'm sure down the line someone like a Morgoth will say I want all this to myself and turn evil. So, in conclusion Good and Evil "coexist" without one the other just simply doesn't exist. If some of that is confusing just say so I'll try to clear it up, I just kind of threw all my thoughts down at once.

[Son of Númenor]

An interesting and (dare I say it?) good thread idea, Iarwain.

The way I see it, Eru, being the sole Creator, is the lone arbiter of goodness; his will is the only objective measure of what is 'good'. Melkor was the first entity whose will conflicted with Eru's. Ergo, Melkor is evil. Melkor could not exist, nor have a will to oppose the will of the Creator, without the Creator creating him and his will. I have just deductively proven that, in Middle-earth, 'evil' owes its existence to 'good'. Good is Eru's Will, and Evil is an Opposing Will. Any omnipotent and omniscient God is an ethical God, for it is God who decides (in monotheistic theory, of course) the Ethics.

And no sooner had he typed his first paragraph, than he was called away to give counsel on matters of grave importance (Should sun-tan lotion be brought? If so, how much? What SPF? Etc.) Hopefully I'll be able to elaborate, lest each sentence of my post is angrily refuted whilst I am helpless to defend it.

Ciao, Downers.

[Nilpaurion Felagund]

...the "temptation" was the little bit of "evil" they have in them. (Boromir88)

I don't think temptation in itself is evil. After, the world's only perfect person was tempted himself.

But I see part of what you mean. Galadriel's temptation...

...when at last all that [Galadriel] had desired in her youth came to her hand, the Ring of Power and the dominion of Middle-earth of which she had dreamed...

(UT II 3 - emphasis mine)

...came from her inherent desire to own the Ring and destroy Sauron with it. A good quest, but the dominion of Middle-earth afterwards?

Gandalf's on the other hand came from his desire to do good. [Sorry, no quotes!] So his temptation is not evil. If he succumbed, he would have thought he did good, then it would get evil quickly.

So there. That's it. all other things that I would have said myself had already been said.

Oh, yeah. Evil never wins.

[Evisse the Blue]

Originally Posted by Nilpaurion Felagund

Evil never wins.

..ultimately. But it does score a lot of smaller scale victories, although in the final battle, Evil cannot win. Heroes die, injustices happen, Arda is marred and villains are allowed to linger on even when an end could have been put to them before they could cause more suffering (I'm thinking of Melkor here, and how the Valar could have subdued him long ago). I guess this has something to do with Eru's passivity. I'm thinking of something Haldir said to the Fellowship, that goes approximately like this: "In all lands love is mingled with grief and its beauty is not dimmed but grows the greater" (I know this is horribly slaughtered from the real thing, so maybe someone can post the real quote).

Is this maybe the reason why suffering and evil is a part of Eru's will? In order to enhance the beauty of its creation?

[The Saucepan Man]

Any omnipotent and omniscient God is an ethical God, for it is God who decides (in monotheistic theory, of course) the Ethics. (Son of Númenor)

I'm thinking of something Haldir said to the Fellowship, that goes approximately like this: "In all lands love is mingled with grief and its beauty is not dimmed but grows the greater" ... Is this maybe the reason why suffering and evil is a part of Eru's will? In order to enhance the beauty of its creation? (Evisse the Blue)

But that's hardly an "ethical approach" as we would understand it, is it?

[Nilpaurion Felagund]

But that's hardly an "ethical approach" as we would understand it, is it? (The Saucepan Man)

Of course. For Eru to "ethically" cleanse evil from the world, he would have to destroy it. Rather, in his Ethics, he allowed Melkor's music to merge with his themes, instead of destroying him right then and there. I could not understand why he did so, considering there is no eternal life or punishment that we know of in Arda.

Instead of uprooting evil with a force of violence he moved on with his plan, but he used Melkor's discordant themes to improve the Ainulindalë.

So there. The Ethics of Eru's passivity. Personally, I would be scared for Arda if Eru is not passive. Remember what happened to the Flat Earth Theory?