[davem]

Originally Posted by SpM

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?

How would you have wished Him to intervene against Morgoth - given that there was no 'quick fix' option (ie destroying of a Ring)? It seems to me that the difference between his direct intervention in the Third Age & his non-intervention in the First is that the Valar were strong enough to deal with Morgoth themselves, & it was a battle of opposing forces. The result did bring devastation to most of Beleriand as a consequence, though. In the Third Age, no one individual could have taken the Ring to the Fire & cast it in of their own free will. Hence it was a matter of Eru stepping in & achieving the Quest, or allowing Middle earth to be taken over by Sauron or his replacement. Eru intervenes because no-one else can do the task at hand.

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.

Surely the Orc will be judged with the very constraints you point out in mind. Less would be expected of the Orc than of a man, Elf or Hobbit. In other words, because of their more privileged position, & the fact that 'goodness' would be a far easier prospect for members of those races, they would have to struggle just as hard (relatively) as Orcs.

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.

Well, we're speaking about Middle earth here, so 'a life of (inescapable) brutality and suffering is' (perhaps) 'acceptable as long as one can look forward to redemption in the hereafter'.

As to Eru placing greater value on afterlives than on lives the only difference between the two is the presence or absence of a hroa...