The halls of mandos and elvish "free will"

[HerenIstarion]

to Rimbaud

Rimbaud, me thinks you make a mistake in putting Eru inside time. Selmo had excellent points, which are shared by your humble servant. But remember, there are several references to Eru’s halls, and always they are described as “timeless”, thing “before time”. From your posts I had an impression you have a mental picture of “omnitemporal” Eru as “stratched” along the timeline. But in fact He’s “outside” it. I can suggest you another mental picture of a man looking upon a rope stratched on the table. Both, table(space) and rope(time), are made by man(God), but man is not bound to be inside each. The picture is lame for if any ant (human, elf) was to move along the rope, it would imply some passage of time by itself. But if there was no time for a man (God)(and there, in fact, is no) than he would be able to see an ant (human, elf) at any given moment of it’s progress along the rope (time). Neither it means that watching ant crawling along the line is somehow influencing it’s progress, i e predestining it. Yet, if talking about fate and free will, add to the your mental picture two more elements – lumps of sugar and drops of orange juice, placed by man (God) simultaneously along the rope (time). Now imagine ant (human, elf) having moral code – eating sugar is sinful, drinking juice is righteous. That placement gives you fate. Suppose red ants (elves) and black ants (humans) have different conditions crawling along the same rope. For the red ones there is fate – sugar and juice placed along the way. Black ones simply don’t sense those, or sense them only if travelling in company of red ones. Red ants’ (elves) free will is expressed in the choice – eat sugar, and therefore sin, or abstinate from it and be righteous. Red ants are unable to leave the rope, black ones are free to stray. Here it is, free will, “omnitemporalness” of God and fate.

I hope I’m not too confusing. I don’t remember direct quote, but C.S.Lewis once answered to the similar question thus: “Surely, watching somebody doing something is not causing him do it?” As an addition, neither event itself.

for further reference see above mentioned

The Role of Fate in Middle Earth