[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by davem

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.

Presumably, however, if the worst had come to the worst and Sauron had regained the Ring and extended his dominion over the entirety of Middle-earth, the Valar would have been just as capable of defeating him. Did Eru simply want to avoid the destruction that Beleriand had suffered in consequence of just such a thing happening in the First Age?

But surely Eru would have foreseen the damage that Beleriand did suffer in the First Age. Assuming that he did, why did he not take steps to prevent this by means of the simple expedient of (indirectly) ensuring that the Valar did not release Morgoth once they captured him. He would have foreseen that Morgoth had no intention of repenting.

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'.

The Orc still has to suffer more, with no choice in the matter, in consequence of the simple fact that he happened randomly to be born an Orc. Or perhaps being born an Orc is not a random event ...