Sauron vs. Your Mama - A Discussion of Power in Middle-earth

[Raynor]

Originally Posted by davem

If this is the case then we can judge whether Eru acts outside this standard.Even if you argue that 'Good' is an aspect of Eru's nature & that he cannot act against the Good then you are still arguing that Good is an absolute which binds even Eru & determines his behaviour.

I don't think that a human could approach this subject, just as we can't know when it is good for a person to die and in what way. We lack the perspective, authority, wisdom, and knowledge usually associated with an absolute being, capable of ensuring that even death can be superseded and more than compensated. We have little if any idea of how God would relate to a human, other than infinite compassion and capability to turn even a (or any) " divine punishment" into a "divine gift", as Tolkien mentioned in the letters. To talk in human terms, even in our system of justice, a minor theft of a rather insignificant object can be more than compensated; I personally hold this to be true all the more on the divine level, regardless the loss or suffering. This divine logic, whether it concerns birth, death or any other circumstance of life, is beyond us, and any approximation of it would be inherently human, limited, faulted.