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Originally Posted by Maedhros
I would like to know how can you be so sure that it was Eru's intervention and not just mere luck.
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You can't - that's the point. If you could know definitely one way or the other it would have a too deterministic effect on your freedom of belief.
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And did Melkor really rebelled?
Ilúvatar gave him the powers and the freedom to use them as he saw fit. It was his right to act as he saw fit, as where the other Ainur.
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No, it wasn't his right to act as he saw fit - certainly he had the
ability to do as he saw fit, but being able to do something is not the same thing as having the right to do it. The Nazis were
able to murder 6 million jews in the death camps, but I don't think anyone (in their right mind) would argue that they had a
right to do it. He was created to serve. Any powers he had came from Eru & were given with the intention that he would use them in His service. Melkor misused his 'power'. Its like, if I let you use my car to take a sick friend to the hospital, & you dump the person by the roadside, sell the car & go on holiday with the proceeds. Being in possession of the car means you have the ability to do that, but you certainly wouldn't have the right to do it.
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Originally Posted by Formendacil
The possibility of rejecting Eru and His laws would remain, but it would be a much less likely thing to happen, without someone pushing it, and corrupting the matter of Arda to proneness towards discord and chaos.
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You've sidetracked me into wondering whether, because there is no Me Bible or Quran, 'Good' & 'evil' have to manifest in rather 'extreme' forms so that they're quite plain & understandable to everyone. There seems to be something of an absence of theologians arguing over the minutiae of their subject in Me. People only have what's in their hearts, a kind of 'innate' understanding of what is 'Good' & what is 'evil' & their experience of good & evil in the world - ie no Ten Commandments, no clearly set out 'rules', no religious imperatives (accept Jesus as your personal saviour or Else!, accept Muhammad as the final prophet of God or Else!, etc etc)
What I mean is the inhabitants of Me have to come the 'Truth' through personal judgement based on their experiences, not by accepting or rejecting the 'word of God'.
This is pure speculation & has just occurred to me, so I'm not it makes complete sense...