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Through acts of contrition or compensation - I think not. Through conscience - sort of. I think the Tolkienian view might be that an individual cannot redeem oneself through consience or actions, but that God will redeem those that have good conscience/will. Also, those with good conscience will tend to do good deeds. So it is practically the same, if essentially different.
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Isn't that a contradiction? If an individual cannot redeem himself through conscience or actions, but God would accept him and redeem him on the BASIS of those actions or of that good conscience, then it is still all action-related and not "forgiveness"-related. Remember the comment about the law-giver being the only one who can wipe the record clean (i.e. redeem)? I think you are coming from the stand point of Equinus and Aristotle (if I am not mistaken) who believed the will to be pure and infallible: but if that were the case, wouldn't that mean that all choices out of that will would therefore be pure and infallible? And therefore make this debate moot (sp?)?
I have never studied "causal determinism" so I claim ignorance on this part and hope you will condescend to still read my comment, but:
If we (or any of the characters in LotR) cannot determine to do good all the time, then there must be a greater (and pure) will that can determine and act good out of the evil that "we" had committed, and that makes for a very unique relationship with that entity of a pure (as in goodness) will. Your argument seems to skirt that issue (which is fine), but I think it is based to much on the humanistic standpoint that we can "fix" ourselves and the world. Does it leave room for an amazing possiblity of an intimate relationship with a higher-power (akin to the idea of Illuvatar)? Am I completely off-base here?
[ December 03, 2002: Message edited by: Kiara ]