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Originally Posted by davem
For one, Eru is not God, but a character Tolkien created, so we can sit in judgement on Him & analyse his behaviour just as freely as we do any other character in the story.
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A good point worth remembering. Unless there are any Eruists around here to offend, we can say what in Angband we like about him.
But seriously, to me when it is said that the hand of Eru was involved in the demise of Gollum and the Ring, it is the same as saying it was Fate which made it happen. And to say it was God or Fate or Eru which caused something to happen is a way of expressing that which we cannot explain.
Really, the chance that Gollum tripped up, and the idea that Eru caused it to happen are two sides of the same coin. We can either say "wow, how lucky for Middle-earth that Gollum fell over his own feet" or we can say "whoa, it was Fate" or we can say "Eru caused this to happen". Really, saying that Eru had a hand in it, is just trying to fix a solid point in the chaos of chance; we can either accept chance or attribute it to higher powers.