[The Saucepan Man]

Free Will, which is a concept that Tolkien clearly states is a part of his myth. (Nils)

Yes, Eru created beings with free will. He knew that beings with free will could potentially rebel against his own will. He therefore created potentially evil beings.

But it is, of course, up to the individual whether he exercises that free will to commit evil. That is the very essence of free will. So, Eru didn't cause evil to exist. He created the potential for it to exist. In that sense, evil does has its source in him.

Melkor freely chose to commit evil. So did Sauron and Saruman. Neither of them were forced to commit evil, however much they might have been influenced. There were countless other Maiar who did not choose the same path. I can therefore understand why the likes of Sauron and Saruman should not have been offered the opportunity of redemption at the end.

But Orcs are different.

But...Melkor did not create anything, he only adjusted and changed, and possibly bred together for a different combination. Therefore, they had the choice. So, the Orcs had a choice to be evil or not, and, driven by fear, they chose to. (Durelin)

I do not agree with this. Whether they were originally Men or Elves (and I still prefer to go with the Elf origin idea [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] ), it seems clear to me that they had no choice but to become Orcs. Melkor saw to that. And if we accept that Orcs, once they came into existence, were inherently evil, then they had no possibility of choosing to act in a good way. They could, by their nature, only act in an evil way. In that sense, they had very limited free will.

Now Eru did not create them that way. That was down to Melkor, who Eru created with free will. And since Melkor chose to exercise his free will (given to him by Eru) to commit evil and one of his evil acts was to create Orcs, and since those Orcs never had any choice but to be evil, it seems only fair to me that Eru should allow them some opportunity of redemption.