[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by HerenIstarion

It would have invloved direct forcible removing of ability = direct suspense of free will = against the rules Eru sets himself = can not be done

I am sure that he could have come up with suitably indirect interventions to achieve the same aim. After all, his interventions in the Third Age effectively denied Sauron of all his abilities without requiring direct action against Sauron himself.

Originally Posted by davem

I still say that Eru's (rare) interventions are to prevent absolute disaster, to pull Middle earth back from the brink.

Well, I would say that Melkor's tainting of Arda was pretty disastrous. As I recall, he never intervened once to obstruct Morgoth's various attempts at world domination, whereas he intervened a number of times to foil Sauron's plans. Is this favouritism, or were the inhabitants of Arda somehow less well equipped to deal with Sauron themselves than they were with Morgoth?

Originally Posted by davem

How much absolute freedom of choice does any race (or individual) actually have. The freedom of choice of every individual is limited by circumstances.

Yes, free will is necessarily constrained by circumstances, physical geography, environment etc. But the limitation on the Orcs' freedom of choice goes much further than this. They appear to have been denied the opportunity to choose good under any circumstances. If it was just down to their upbringing, I would still expect a small, but significant, proportion of Orcs to reject evil, just as some brought up in a moral and caring environment will nevertheless turn bad.

Originally Posted by Formendacil

I personally think that Iluvatar would look at the ork's life, at how he lived, and then look deep into his soul. Iluvatar then learns whether or not the ork rejects His forgiveness and mercy, or whether it rejects it.

Well that's fine for the putative good Orc after he has died. But he still has to behave evilly, and suffer accordingly, throughout his life - which (Eru's perspective notwithstanding) will seem a very long time to him.

Perhaps it's because I have no firm belief in the afterlife that I find it difficult to accept that a life of (inescapable) brutality and suffering is acceptable as long as one can look forward to redemption in the hereafter. But it does seem to me from what you are all saying that Eru places greater value on the afterlives of the beings of Arda than on their actual lives. And he seems not to value non-sentient (ie soulless) beings at all.