Predestination in Middle-Earth

[Lord of Angmar]

Beings with free will may try to fight against God's plan, but all they end up doing is help to bring it about.

This is a contradictory statement as "beings of free will" implies that these are beings who have power over their future within the context of their surroundings. A being, in my opinion, can never exert free will who is destined for a certain fate, and thus the two entities conflict greatly.

While Eru may have been partially "based on the God of the Bible," it can generally be agreed that he was not a mint copy of the Christian God. I personally believe that he was eternally existent.

infinite "reality" of nonexistence

That seems quite the oxymoron. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] It is of course inherently illogical to the human mind, as we cannot even begin to comprehend what would be if there was nothing that was. It is, I suppose, just as possible as the eternal existence theory, but Tolkien, I feel, never intended us to be fully aware of Eru's origins or lack thereof.