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Originally Posted by Macalaure
Hmm, then you say that in order to be absolutely good, one has to be perfect (in this case, all-knowing)? Of course a good person's actions would be better if he was omniscient, and Manwe certainly made quite a couple of mistakes in his career, but wouldn't this make the threesome of all-good, all-knowing, all-powerful partly redundant? My knowledge of theology is admittedly rather limited, but I always took the meaning of all-good to be only that a person's will and intentions are absolutely good (setting aside whether this is equal to absence of evil here). I don't see why it should be impossible to have a person that is all-good, but not all-knowing and all-powerful. In any case, this was at least my idea when I labelled Manwe absolutely good.
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I'm not so sure it's a theological background that'd be necessary to get where I'm coming from so much as a philosophical one (though where philosophy of God is concerned, the two are obviously intertwined). Pertinent to explaining what I was getting at, however, is the following post from
Boro:
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Originally Posted by Boromir88
Here is another thought, there's been talk about absolute evil, Morgoth, Sauron..etc and Tolkien does say that he doesn't believe in Absolute Evil, but he goes on to talk about the two big villains in his myth (Morgoth and Sauron) - what about objects? What about the Ring? Maybe since Sauron is not absolute evil, it is impossible for him to create something that is. However, the Ring just has this knack to turn every possible light, into dark. It has the ability to twist, and corrupt even the most noble actions. And as Frodo is full of pity, strength, courage, to get the Ring to the place where it was made, Frodo's chance to overcome an object of absolute evil; an object that can do no good and turn the best intentions upside down, fails. Frodo succumbs to the Ring - does it then take an absolute good character to destroy an absolutely evil object?
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This is pertinent, however, insofar as I would disagree with
Boromir about the Ring being
absolutely evil, because it does NOT have the ability to corrupt
all actions. Notable as an exception here is Tom Bombadil (seen in the text) and, speculatively, any effect on beings substantially more powerful than Sauron, such as Manwë or Varda (I can see no reason why beings with more power than Sauron could be seduced by the promise of his, lesser, power).
It is not that the Ring lacks in evilness so much as it lacks in capacity to achieve absolute evil. Because I'm a professional nitpicker, I would therefore distinguish between
absolute evil and
complete evil. The Ring, in my opinion is not absolute evil but rather complete evil. There is nothing good about the Ring*, but it is not absolutely evil because it does not have the capacity to effect that much evil--and not only because it cannot grant power equivalent to that possessed by Manwë or (formerly) Melkor, but because it has to GRANT evil. The Ring is an evil tool, but it is not as evil as it could be because it cannot effect its will alone. Granted, it does seem to have a will of itself, which is why it is substantially more evil than other tools capable of producing evil, but it is not capable of evil action on its own, but requires assistance--assistance in proportion to whoever is wielding it; greater in the case of Galadriel or Gandalf, less in the case of Sam or Gollum.
Likewise, to get back to my explanation regarding Manwë, it is not that I think he is anyway less than completely good, but that he is not absolutely good. Everything that Manwë does is good, but it is not absolutely good because he does not have the foresight to know what is best in every situation, and so cannot do it (the example of Númenor already given is pertinent) in every situation. Though the motivation of Manwë remains good in all situations, he is not absolutely good because he lacks the knowledge or power to be so.
Hopefully, that hairsplitting on my part makes a bit more sense now.
*Unless one takes the Augustinian path and says that, since existence is a good, the Ring, since it exists, is still good at least to that minimal extent.