[Raynor]

Originally Posted by skip

To speculate about the how much pre-knowledge Eru could've had about this is taking the analysis to absurd levels.

In my opinion, I have presented evidence that this is so; then again, we may have to agree to disagree .

Melkor wasn't born evil; he "fell" from his preordained high path and rebelled against Eru.

Though we was not born evil, I retain my interpretation that Eru pretty much put him on a set course, given the powers he had given him. As Later Quenta Silmarillion (to which we made several indirect references) states, the greatest are the most potent for evil. And correlated with MT, ("every finite creature must have some weakness: that is some inadequacy to deal with some situations"), I would say it is quite reasonable to expect Melkor to go this way.

You come with many argument that the choice to do good or bad was always there, regardless of Melkors marring. And this is a reasonable conclusion if we weren't talking about a fictual mythology but rather an underlying real world that the stories refers to. But it isn't a real world. It is a fictional mythology. It is my opinion that within this mythology as it is written Melkor introduced evil as a moral category.

Eru made His Children as rational beings - and free, as the valar noter in the Ainulindale.Thus, from the very start, they have the (general) ability to choose. Why would they lack the ability to choose between good and evil? Why would Eru limit their ability to choose, in regards to what is, ultimately the most important issue, that of morality, since it is, by and large, the only aspect that can connect the Eruhini back to their Creator? And, moreover, why would He allow his foremost "enemy" to crown them with this, arguably, greatest of all gifts? I particularly have problem with this last aspect, since:

- if Melkor introduced the moral category of evil, he must have also introduced that of good (them being complementary facets);
- it also means: either that he amended even the creation of the Ainur by giving them the ability to choose between good and evil (but you already disagreed with this) or that the Ainur had this ability but the Eruhini didn't - and none of this seems to me to be in accordance with Tolkien's work;
- most importantly of all, "none of the Ainur had part in their [the Eruhini's] making" (Ainulindale).

Moreover, Tolkien didn't want his Middle Earth to be alien to our world, quite the opposite, as he stated in his letters or BBC interview.

Notice that during the elder days, nothing bad even happens without Melkor behind it.

Given that he dispensed a great deal of power to promote evil, I would say that this is a rather natural outcome, that most, or all, evil events are connected to him, by receiving his "world-wide" support.

Even though elves' bodies theoretically could be destroyed which would "kill" them, this wasn't suppose to happen in Arda Unmarred or the blessed Aman.

In my opinion, if this was supposed to be so, then the elves would have had invulnerable bodies. However, not even the Valar, not even Melkor, enjoy such a trait. Therefore, it is reasonably to presume that death is a possibility, left as such by the Creator. Moreover, the Valar do not understand the complete purpose of Creation, the Eruhini the least of all. (Did sorrow lacked completely in Aman, I wonder? What about Elwe and Olwe, brothers being separated? Or kindreds separated? Or the Noldor missing Middle Earth? Or what about the Elves in Aman that, most likely, had members of their clan or family being taken away by Melkor, while they were all still in Middle Earth? Didn't this sorrows already made their way in Aman (not all of them related to Melkor, since separation of kin can appear in any circumstances)? And if the Valar didn't see this, doesn't this say how little they understood them or their purpose?)