[aragornreborn]

Saucepan Man:

he does not intend evil to occur.

Do you mean intend or want? From what I have read of Eru, He is omnipotent. Thus, if He did not intend evil to occur then He would have prevented it. So, He must allow it to occur. But since he is a pure spirit, it must not please him.

The theory that I am exploring is that evil is a necessary part of his divine plan.

I believe that when He bestowed free will on His creations, He knew that evil was inevitable because his creations were not and could not be perfect. He didn’t create co-equal gods. Thus, His creations could not be perfect. So, in making imperfect, free-willed creations, evil was inevitable, but not necessary. If He intended or required evil to occur, He could not be a pure spirit which He is. A pure spirit can not desire evil to occur.

I am interested that you see Eru as having intervened directly in the Quest to destroy the Ring (and, therefore, Sauron).

I do not necessarily believe that Eru personally nudged Gollum into the volcano. I believe He could have. I do believe that Eru can use anyone and anything for His purpose (including slippery stones), but He may also just do it Himself.

But, the Istari cannot carry out the task themselves - this must be done by the humans and hobbits, by making choices based upon their free will.

That is how Eru chose things to work, but make no mistake, humans and hobbits and any other free-willed characters can not contend with the will of Eru. While they do have free-will, Eru can still use all actions for his purposes.

You suggest, however, that Eru intervened more directly, by causing Gollum to slip at the vital moment. But, if he was able to intervene in this way, why did he not do so earlier, for example by causing Isildur to slip, or to drop the Ring, when he stood on the edge of Orodruin? Perhaps because the subsequent years of evil had to be endured to allow humans (and hobbits) to reach their full potential?

I don’t know and can’t know how and why Eru does all things (that is why I am the imperfect human and he is the perfect God), but I can tell you that He does know what He’s doing. He is described, after all, as omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. So one must assume that He has power over all things and the knowledge to execute that power at the proper time. I do believe Eru can use the results of evil to teach his creations valuable lessons and to cause them to grow.

(By way of an aside, while Gollum can, I think, be described as an instrument of evil, being driven by his desire for the Ring, it is possibly unfair to describe him as having had a choice in this matter. I see him as having been under the influence of the Ring (and therefore denied free will) from the moment it came into his life. Perhaps it might be said that he was weak-willed, since he came under its influence so quickly and so easily.)

If Eru is the One Who gave free will, then it makes sense that He would be the only One able to limit free will (which I don’t believe He does). Thus the Ring can not have denied Gollum free will. Gollum must have chosen directly for himself. He saw Deagol with the ring, wanted it, killed Deagol, and took it.

If it is correct to say that it was his will that good would triumph in the end, then there was always a possibility that he would have to intervene to ensure that this did indeed happen. But, then again, doesn't that run against the concept of free will, ie that evil had to be defeated through the exercise of free will?

I just had a revelation! Not only does Eru use the free will of others for His purpose, but He is an omnipotent God! He’ll let Gollum (and everyone else) make the wrong decisions, but He will also punish them for those decisions. He can still let them exercise their free will but may push them into a lava pit either as punishment or because that’s what He wants.