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This question came to me while listening to a radio discussion of the Christian God's omniscience in regards to free will. The caller was perplexed, as having free will in the same universe with a God who knew the future didn't seem to be tenable.

The show host responded that the omniscient God sees the future as we see the/our past. We do not cause things to happen in the past, yet can have full knowledge of the events.

Anyway, the question then is: Is Tolkien's world Eru's replay? In the Christian world I assume that even though God knows the future, we are still moving from some start point in time to some other for the first time - it's all a new game. The future has yet to happen, and we're playing the game to some end.

Tolkien's God Eru has already played the game once, and Arda is a replay. Surely I know that there are new things that arise in the playing of Arda that might not have been heard in the Music, but I assume that Eru heard all themes, notes, etc, and from His perspective, Arda's life is a replay.

How does Tolkien reconcile these differences in 'theology?'

Hope that that makes sense.