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I was not aware that Islam (or any other religion for that matter) had a "spirit" similar to Christianity's but I am interested to hear more on this, Child.
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Silvershod Muse --
I do know from personal experience that the concept of providence is absolutely central to traditional Judaism. However, we do not have the term or concept of Holy Spirit as Christianity does.
Divine providence is called "hashgakha pratit" in Hebrew. A more popular word in Yiddish than you may have hard of from Hollywood movies is that of "Bashert" which means "fated." It really means the same thing. When a young man or woman begin to search for their life partner, they are said to be looking for their "bashert."
A popular orthodox proverb even says "Not a grain of sand moves from its place on the beach except by divine fiat." Most traditional Jews would probably say that, in reality, this statement is a bit strong, especially given the doctrine of free will.
But, at the same time, they would agree, based on the example of the Torah, that there are times when God acts in this world.
I know less about Islam, but my Sufi brother-in-law assures me that they, too, have similar concepts.
The difficulty with providence, whether you are talking about Tolkien or "real life", is how to balance this with the concept of free will as well as with the existence of evil. Since this is a Tolkien board, I'll confine my comments to that.
Even in Tolkien, the interplay of the two is challenging. Frodo is given the freedom to accept or reject his task. Similarly, he is given the freedom to grant "mercy" to Gollum or not. So the act of providence which occurs at the end could not have happened without his assent and cooperation. But, by the same token, given the interplay of good and evil in us all, he could not have succeeded without that providence.
That is just one of many instances you could debate and scratch your head over. The very existence of Morgoth, the toleration of his acts and of the marring of Arda, is another.
Wiser heads than I could do a better job explaining this. My crew are pleading for their dinner so must go.
sharon, the 7th age hobbit