Is Eru God?

[Roa_Aoife]

Originally Posted by davem

I think those last three words sum up the difference perfectly - in Judeo-Christian myth the Fall is a tragedy because it didn't have to happen. Tolkien clearly implies that if a Fall was not necessarily 'inevitable' (though I wonder from his words whether he didn't actually consider it was inevitable) it was certainly very likely. God creates a world which He considers 'Good', Eru creates a world which is already flawed in such a way that a Fall is 'an accident waiting to happen'. Eru chose to allow Melkor's dissonance to be included in the creation. Why? To give Melkor the chance to repent when he saw his 'dissonance' made real? Fine, but real people area going to suffer as a resullt of that act of compassion.

Or was it all about 'free will' - too easy. If I leave a group of of children alone in a room where I have placed a load of sharp knives in full view because they have 'free will' as far as what they do with those knives, am I thereby absolved of any responsibility as to what they do? Would I be justified in punishing those children if they stabbed each other?

Congratulations, you just brought up one of the biggest debates in Christianity today. If Tolkien thought the Fall of Man was inevitable, I can bring to mind several Theologians who would disagree. This debate has been going around for a long time, even from the Middle Ages when the Calvinists showed up. Yes, God declares the world good, but that doesn't mean it was supposed to stay that way. Initially, Ea was good, too, until Melkor started messing things up. Many think the Fall of Man was a plan of God's all along- certainly he knew it was going to happen before the world was created (that's what Omniscient means...) but He created it anyway, and then allowed it to occur.

In the Garden of Eden, God set up a failure- the Tree- allowed Satan in to tempt Adam and Eve, and then He wasn't there at the crucial moment. Many Theologians look at this and say it was inevitable. Given Tolkien's pessimisstic view of God, it's possible that he belonged to this school of thought. Therefore, perhaps he wasn't trying to insert Catholicism into the story, but trying to make it look more positive and optimistic, as was the status quo of that time. Looking like a Calvinist (which is a sect of Protestantism) would not be acceptable to an Orthodox Catholic.

So, if we can't trust his statements, and the text is vague, and there's no hard evidence about his mindset, what are we left with? Our own interpretations? Eru help us....

EDIT: My pastor made my point about the fall of Man for me this morning. "We tend to view the fall like this: God created a perfect world, and declared it good. Then Adam and Eve come along and screw it all up and 'Ooops!' God is caught off guard. He says, 'Oh no! Whatdo I do? Anyone have any ideas?' Jesus stands up in the back and says, 'It's ok, Dad, I have a plan.' It seems silly, but that's how we really think of it. God had a perfect plan A, we screwed it up, and He had to come up with a Plan B. The truth is more likely to be that God planned in the Fall, that in fact it was part of his Perfect Plan A to reveal His love through our reconciliation to Him. The Fall of Man was supposed to happen."

This is not a widely accepted thought, especially not in Catholicism. If this is the idea that Tolkien had, in some form, he may have tried later to bring it back to the more accepted "We screwed up God's Plan, now we have to pay for it." Galileo, when he suggested the world was round, was nearly excommunicated untill he recanted his idea. Tolkien may have felt the same pressure to conform to the Catholic Church, not by inserting Christianity, but by fixing the view of it, even openly admitting that his version didn't coincide with the truth, even if that thruth may have been wrong.

[alatar]

This question came to me while listening to a radio discussion of the Christian God's omniscience in regards to free will. The caller was perplexed, as having free will in the same universe with a God who knew the future didn't seem to be tenable.

The show host responded that the omniscient God sees the future as we see the/our past. We do not cause things to happen in the past, yet can have full knowledge of the events.

Anyway, the question then is: Is Tolkien's world Eru's replay? In the Christian world I assume that even though God knows the future, we are still moving from some start point in time to some other for the first time - it's all a new game. The future has yet to happen, and we're playing the game to some end.

Tolkien's God Eru has already played the game once, and Arda is a replay. Surely I know that there are new things that arise in the playing of Arda that might not have been heard in the Music, but I assume that Eru heard all themes, notes, etc, and from His perspective, Arda's life is a replay.

How does Tolkien reconcile these differences in 'theology?'

Hope that that makes sense.

[HerenIstarion]

alatar, it seems to me you repeat the mistake the show caller made - how exactly Eru's omniscience differs from real world God's omniscience?

Indeed, did Eru 'play the game' once, or was it a rather a 'theme' - a rehearsal, a plan, rails along which the train of the world would move?

I can't see 'difference of ideologies' here. The 'rehearsal' was made for Ainur's sake, to let them see what it was all about, to give them 'general idea', not to help Eru see what He was doing.

Besides, terms 'first time', 'second time' seem inapplicable to me in the case - the Music was before world's time, and if there is any other kind of time in the Halls of Eru we do not know.

I once made a following analogy, I believe it may be applicable here:

Originally Posted by HerenIstarion

I can suggest you another mental image of a man looking upon a rope stretched on the table. Both, table (space) and rope (time), are made by man (God), but man is not bound to be inside either. 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) 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

Coming from Halls of Mandos and Elvish Free Will.

Let's further tune the image by saying Man at the Table may be seeing an Ant for each given moment of it's progress along the Rope, but all individual Ants are, in fact, same Ant stretched through the length of the Rope-Time.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by HerenIstarion

alatar, it seems to me you repeat the mistake the show caller made - how exactly Eru's omniscience differs from real world God's omniscience?

Thank you for your reply and analogy. In regards to omniscience, one has to assume that omniscience = omniscience, independent of bearer as the word means what it means. My question, maybe poorly stated, is that the Christian God to my knowledge did not preplay the game. He may have already have watched it, being God and all, but regarding the individual players, it was all new and never 'sung' before. My understanding of Eru is that he orchestrated the Ainur's song, recorded it then played it back as Arda. He, being God and all, knew what was sung before any note was uttered. Now the Ainur, players in the theme, not only played in the subsequent replay but participated in and even remembered the initial singing. Is this same foreknowledge/replay idea in beings less than omniscient found within Christian theology?

In ME we have actors that obtain foreknowledge as they remember the original Music/hear echoes of the Music whereas in Christianity (I assume) prediction/foreknowledge comes directly and only from God.

[davem]

Surely its possible that the Music & Ea are 'simultaneous' events. The Music happens outside the world of time & Ea is its 'reflection'. Certainly, from Eru's perspective if all things are known they would all be known simultaneously. There's no need for Ea to be a 'replay' of the Music. If the Music happened in 'Eternity' it cannot therefore have happened 'before' anything (or 'after') for that matter. Perhaps we're talking 'above/below' rather than 'before/after'?

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by alatar

In ME we have actors that obtain foreknowledge as they remember the original Music/hear echoes of the Music whereas in Christianity (I assume) prediction/foreknowledge comes directly and only from God.

Originally Posted by davem

Surely its possible that the Music & Ea are 'simultaneous' events. The Music happens outside the world of time & Ea is its 'reflection'. Certainly, from Eru's perspective if all things are known they would all be known simultaneously. There's no need for Ea to be a 'replay' of the Music. If the Music happened in 'Eternity' it cannot therefore have happened 'before' anything (or 'after') for that matter. Perhaps we're talking 'above/below' rather than 'before/after'?

Ea itself could be the echo of the Music. Maybe, so is everything contained therein - at least everything that is not Ainur (or maybe they too are part of that echo, or become part of it if they choose to enter the world?). When a person has foresight it may be, as alatar suggests, that they can hear this echo more clearly; this would make sense in the case of Elves who do not die as they would have had not only more time to make sense of the music, but being outside the constraints of time they may be more attuned to these echoes.

It makes me wonder what would happen if the echo ceased. Would the world end?

[alatar]

Is the echo God?

And again, is my perceived difference in foreknowledge in the two different worlds a problem for Tolkien - one from God and one 'external' of God?