[Child of the 7th Age]

Yet there is a problem with simply sticking a 'dream' into the heart of a story - & that is integration. The dream has to be integrated into the story in a convincing way. Any character from the story who is given a role in the dream section is going to have to act 'in character' or the dream will not be properly integrated & stick out like a sore thumb. So we're left with the question of how Eru will be percieved by the reader, & how this one act will impact on the reader's understanding of & feelings about Eru. Put Numenor on one side & what do we have of Eru in the Legendarium?

Yes, you are right, davem. But the difference may be that I am comfortable with that act of integration while you are less so. Obviously from this thread, there is no one opinion on this. But if you accept the basic ground rules that JRRT laid down, then Eru is a distant figure who, even if he is known to the author, is not truly known to the Men in the story and, by implication, the Men reading the story. Since we do not even understand the nature of Eru or the mystery that stands at the heart of creation, how can we possibly make a judgment on informed grounds as to the "justness" of Eru's act?

That puts the reader in a strange position. He can accept that ambiguity or insert some other image of "god" or "ungod" into the story to try and achieve greater clarity. I think both Hookbill and Littlemanpoet have hit the nail on the head. In Imp's words that bear repeating.....

I have been aware throughout this debate that some of us may be equating Eru with Yahweh. It is hard not to do, regardless of one's personal beliefs and leanings.......One does best to avoid attempting to create a full-blown theology for a fictional world.

My own feeling is that on this point both the mystery and the ambiguity must remain. There's certainly nothing wrong with personal speculation, speculation that seems to be inevitably shaped by our own personal views of deity in the "real" world. But there is a chasm of not knowing that Tolkien purposely placed at the heart of his story, and there is a certain point we can't go beyond. Tolkien almost seems to delight in doing this to the reader. One moment we are given hints of a greater force at work by the use of the passive voice in the narrative or by showing Faramir's men standing at "grace" after their meal. The next moment we are given a hobbit society that has absolutely no religious content. Except for a footnote or two in the Letters, we have hobbits who aren't really aware of Varda and Manwe, let alone Eru. The one exception is Frodo and Sam who are the only two "Little Folk" who take a step closer to that chasm and peer down into its depths.....hence Samwise's invocations to Varda and Gandalf's comments on Frodo's light being like that of the silmarils. Even these glimpses, however, are guarded and spell out little beyond the mere acknowledgement that there are forces at work beyond the edge of the story.

Several questions intrigue me that no one has discussed. Tolkien was no fool. Was he aware of the potential outcry from some readers about the "unjust" nature of Eru's act given what happened in Numenor? Was that reaction something that he could not conceive of, since his own personal view of deity was Catholic at the core? Or did he simply see it as not being a relevant discussion or response in the context of constructed myth?

And secondly, davem, if we accept (only for purposes of argument )your suggestion that Eru is a minor, irritable, and seemingly flawed character, how big a "defect" is this? If such a major flaw exists at the heart of Middle-earth, what does it do to the Legendarium overall? Even if men of Middle earth and the reader know virtually nothing about Eru's nature and see little active involvement on his part, the reader does know he is the Creator of the world and holds mysteries that no one else comprehends. Can the Creator of the world who stands at the beginning of the whole legendarium be a "minor and irritable" character, or is this a fatal flaw? To put it bluntly, did Tolkien blow it by giving us tiny glimpses of deity or reflected deity in one part of the narrative and pulling back in others so that we are ultimately left with unaswered questions. If the author truly wanted to keep "religion" out of his created world, as he certainly stated at one point, then why start the whole thing off with Eru? Or did his Catholic beliefs compel him to do this and, yet at the same time, require him to make Eru no more than a "minor, irritable" character, because of the difficulties of writing in a pre-revelation world?

Anyone out there....I am truly curious about this.