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Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

As you comment yourself, this little problem didn't seem to bother Tolkien as it relates to Thingol and Melian. My sense is that angels apparently had the ability to incarnate.

I've read up on the matter a bit, and it's definitely not clear whether fallen angels have the ability to incarnate. Jude 6 seems to state that the fallen ones are not even around, having been chained as was Melkor. On the other hand, Jacob (Israel) wrestles with a being that can bless him, and the angels at Sodom had physicality enough to attract some unwanted attention, but in these examples seemingly these are not angels of the fallen sort. In the New Testament we have demonic possession and less, if any, children of the 'sons of God' (as in Genesis 6) . What's even a bit more confusing is that the Nephalim are considered "heroes of old," which to me seems to be placing them in a somewhat positive light. If the fallen could produce hybrid offspring, then why not the unfallen doing the same to provide a counter? It's not clear, and so I will quit the point as I'm not sure what else to say. But thanks for your thoughts.

The angels, the maia, in Arda can incarnate yet do not mate with humans, at least directly. I guess the elves are something of a hybrid, allowing Melian's spirit/blood to flow in Aragorn's veins. Did Tolkien have this superbeing/human pairing because he too believed that Genesis 6 spoke of angels mating with humans?

By allowing humans free will, God has necessarily placed limits upon his own omnipotence. This is rather frightening concept that most Christians don't want to try to get their minds around, but when you look at it, it's pretty obvious.

As a finite being that is so out of my league it's hard to comment, as I think that you've just said is that the infinite imposes limits on itself. That's one big rock it can't move!

They were not destroyed, but imprisoned. Check out 2 Peter 2:4-5.

My point was that if, as you state, that they are to be imprisoned or were imprisoned, then what is the need to drown them?

Warning: speculation: regarding sub-human or super-human, I've been wondering these last few years about such myths as the minotaur, or hippogriffs, or what have you. Now, they may just be fantasy, but if one posits the power of fallen angelic beings to incarnate as they wish and commit whatever unspeakable acts they wish to, who knows what might not result? But as I said, that's just speculation.

That's interesting that you see it through that lens, as I too have wondered what put those ideas into people's heads, but instead of considering fallen angels as a source, would consider some unusual animal that, with the passage of time, took on a more impossible visage. I've always wondered what our lives would be like back then, when one permitted oneself more time in which to dream and name clouds.

With the 24/7 media blitz in which we live today, could something as spectacular as LotR even make it to the presses? Or would Professor Tolkien be blogging instead?

Hell is probably the single most difficult stumbling block. I realize that no matter what I say with this one, it's going to seem like an insult. I can't help that, and I don't mean it that way. I had a bit of an epiphany that hell is actually best seen as God's final grace to those who refuse him. 'What about the fire and brimstone?' you may ask, or the lake of fire? Here's a case in which I see those things as metaphorical. Hell is best understood as the absence of God. Not that God is absent from anywhere in existence; but humans have this unusual gift that they can choose not to be a part of God's reality. It's stunning, really. But God does finally say to some, "Your will be done; exist for eternity without Me." I can imagine this feeling like a lake of fire, or like fire and brimstone, especially if the person must live with the regret of "if only I had allowed him in, but I finally know better." That's hell enough.

Hell actually makes sense. You don't want to be with God; fine, have it your way. Like has been said, to truly say yes you must have the option to say no. And just where do unrepentent men in Middle Earth, or say those like the Mouth of Sauron, go when they die?