[Raynor]

Originally Posted by obloquy

Therefore, before eating from the tree, Adam and Eve were unaware of any course of action contrary to the wishes of God. When they listened to Satan and chose to sin, their eyes were opened because now they knew that they could ignore the commands of God--they were, after all, created with free will, just as the angels were.

Hm, isn't there a contradiction between saying that they didn't have free will previously to eating the fruit, yet they chose to listen to the snake?

Originally Posted by alatar

So my question is, in both Tolkien's view of Christianity and in his created world, were Men more apt to resist evil in the beginning (or not), and was evil itself more powerful in the past?

I would say that evil was more powerful in the past - because: there were Melkor and Sauron, and all the other lads; evil was more concentrated, and thus harder to resist; the foundations of the world are good and able to heal the evil from "within" (cf Myths Transformed & Athrabeth).

I wouldn't know what to say about resistance to evil. In the New Shadow, and its comments, Tolkien expands on his idea that Men turn to evil due to their quick satiety with good (even if in the fourth age there is no mythological incarnation of evil anymore, cf Myths Transformed). I would say that Men, left to their own devices, would develop, as a race, a decreased resistance to evil. However, we know that Eru intervenes continuously in the world, and that such a probable outcome will be in fact avoided.

Originally Posted by Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth, HoME X

If we are indeed the Eruhin, the Children of the One, then He will not suffer Himself to be deprived of His own, not by any Enemy, not even by ourselves.

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Assuming Middle-earth is a closed system without anything leaking in from the Void, which is probably an incorrect assumption as Ungoliant did leak in

Well, M-E isn't a closed system, in relation to the Void, since Eru continuously intervenes in every age (Ungoliant didn't come from the Void, but from the darkness around Arda; upon the difference between them, Tolkien comments in his commentaries on the Silm. in Myths Transformed).

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

I don't think the question of genetic imperfection would have pertained in Eden, because, if Adam and Eve had not 'fallen', would they still have reproduced?

I believe so (emphasis added:

Originally Posted by Genesis, Bible, King James version

26 And God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."

27 So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

And, oblo, God was just an inexperienced Parent. As any parent has learnt, the quickest way to get your child to do something is to forbid it.

Is that what actually happened? Was He really inexperienced? Dostoievski envisioned Jesus as saying that:

Originally Posted by Brothers Karamazov

- Why you do not perform a miracle? the Great Inquisitor asks, why you do not prove people that you are Jesus? You are only returning, but you do not rescue the world.

- People must trust in me, Jesus answers, the real trust is that trust, which is not buttressed by the facts. If I will do a miracle everyone will trust me, but the real believer trusts me without miracles.

In MT, Tolkien says that

Nonetheless this gift of Iluvatar to the Valar (the Imperishable Flame) has its own peril, as have all his free gifts: which is in the end no more than to say that they play a part in the Great Tale so that it may be complete; for without peril they would be without power, and the giving would be void.

With the free will, another aspect is introduced in the nature of Men, that is, their quick satiety with good. However, to paraphrase Tolkien on the issue of carnal temptation,

Originally Posted by Letter #43

Faithfulness in Christian marriage entails that: great mortification. For a Christian man there is no escape. Marriage may help to sanctify & direct to its proper object his sexual desires; its grace may help him in the struggle; but the struggle remains.

Or, from an "in-story" perspective, being attached to anything less than Eru is bound to lead to sorrow:

Originally Posted by Author's note #7 on the Commentary, Athrabeth

By the holiness of good men - their direct attachment to Eru, before and above all Eru's works - the Elves may be delivered from the last of their griefs: sadness; the sadness that must come even from the unselfish love of anything less than Eru.

Therefore, this is what it is expected of us (well, Eruhini):

Originally Posted by Author's note #2 on the Commentary, Athrabeth

More probably, [the elves] were not informed by the will or design of Eru, who appears in the Elvish tradition to demand two things from His Children (of either Kindred): belief in Him, and proceeding from that, hope or trust in Him (called by the Eldar estel).