Lady,
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He had to include an evil, or "imperfect" god, because otherwise good would not exist… Men both in real life and in Middle-earth are both imperfect, therefore "sin" is inevitable. That raises the question, were we meant to sin? I believe so, so I think that what we call sinning is just a part of life that must be accepted.
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This apparently is a rather popular notion these days. However, its not the position of mainstream Christianity, and especially not the position of the Catholic world view that Tolkien shared. I’m not going to write this out again, so I’m copying and pasting from another thread:
Evil is simply an absence of good. Something is evil in as much as it is, to one degree or another,
not what it ought to be. That presupposes that that something has a nature, which in and of itself is good, and
it is evil to the degree that it fails to actualize it’s nature. Thus all evils are a corruption of things made good. Good things are more in being, because their natures are more actualized, and evil things are less in being because their natures are less actualized. This is the metaphysic accepted by Tolkien’s religious faith, Catholicism, and I think you would be hard pressed to demonstrate to me, from direct narrative or latter speculations, that he had any other metaphysic in mind when he conceived the creation and fall of Arda…
Melkor is evil, not by design, not because he has to be in order for there to be good, but
because he wills not to be what Eru created him to be. It is a free act of will on his part. If it is necessary in any way for Melkor to be evil according Eru’s design, then Melkor would essentially be devoid of freewill.
Nothing was created inherently evil, and nothing was ever meant to be evil according to God’s, or for that matter Eru’s, plan. Evil in our world is caused by the misuse of freewill. Evil in Arda is caused by the misuse of freewill. Melkor was created inherently good.
To be honest, I’m very sad that people think sin and evil are necessary or inevitable. There’s no hope in such a position. Why try to make the world better? Why try to be virtuous?
Doug,
Judging from what Tolkien wrote in many of his letters, he did indeed intend Middle-Earth to be the real Middle-Earth, our Earth. I don’t think he would actually go so far as to believe his mythology was real or true in that the events of Middle-Earth really did happen in some pre-pre-historic time. However, like all the other mythologies that he knew and loved, he created a mythology that attempted to explain the real world in which we live. That’s the reason why there is no Christ figure in Middle-Earth, because there is already a Christ figure… the real Christ, albeit in the sequel (or rather the sequel of the sequel of the sequel of the sequel).
Like I said, I think he started his construction without reference to his Christian faith, but only latter seeing how his faith was unconsciously incorporated (those are actually his words, presenting us with a rather subjective observation), attempted in the revision to consciously incorporate it. Though not provable, we shouldn’t exclude the possibility that Tolkien underwent a spiritual conversion sometime between his first jottings and his final speculations. Rarely are people’s faith lives static. Perhaps his ever changing family life spurred him toward more Christian musings, or maybe some of the discussions during the inkling meetings resurrected spurts of religious fervor.
Just another aside (of apparently infinite asides): Original sin does not need a redeeming Christ-figure for it to happen. God could have consigned the whole human race to pain, suffering and inescapable hell on earth for all eternity. That after all that is the just reward for sin. Redemption wrought in Christ, like creation, is a free gift. Thanks, God.