Ghost-Prince of Cardolan
Posts: 616
Mith, you are askin a question that can not be answered, or if it may be, it can give only personal opinions with ambivalency of possible belief or rejection. I mean that when all the history of the ME (except the last ages, when fading of the Firstborn approaches it's fulfilment) concerns mostly elves, and those have no answer. And I doubt JRRT himself had a clear opinion about that. C.f.
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though it has been said that a greater still shall be made before Ilúvatar by the choirs of the Ainur and the Children of Ilúvatar after the end of days
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with
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Yet of old the Valar declared to the Elves in Valinor that Men shall join in the Second Music of the Ainur; whereas Ilúvatar has hot revealed what he purposes for the Elves after the World's end, and Melkor has not discovered it.
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Comparing this two quotes one may come to think that Men a beloved ones, truly Children of Eru, and elves and Ainur are not, but that would be false idea, and the truth is simple - no one can know all the purposes of the One
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Now this suggests that while men have free will, elves and the Valar and all else does not, at least to the extent that any matter derives from the Music.
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Free will is expressed rather by a gift of choice than by an ability to leave the circles of the world. It is true that all is predicted in Music, but it is true as well that
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but it seemed that its most triumphant notes were taken by the other and woven into its own solemn pattern
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So comes that any thing made comes in the end to be the praise of Illuvatar.
Now for my personal opinion:
Children, as well as Valar, live
in time, which means all that befell them comes as a chain of different moments, so their experience is limited. Eru, who is out of time, sees it in all it's length and knows all things that were, are and are still to come. One can cocnclude that, as all that is to come is already known by Eru, as he is experiencing it as we experience our present , there is no place for a free will. But it may be argued this way - to watch somebody doing something is not the same as to make him do it, is not it so? And, as well, see the quote above, about music woving everything into it's pattern