Pardon my delay in "asiding" to this aside,
Galin. The thread has moved faster than RL allows me time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Galin
As an aside: as Bethberry noted, Verlyn Flieger does argue that the Children of God have free will, yet she seemingly argues this distinction as well: that Elves do not have Free Will in the same sense as Men -- that the decisions of the Elves don't alter external outcome (as they are bound to the Music)! She looks at Feanor's decision concerning the Silmarils and notes: 'I take the operation of free will in this instance to be along the lines of Feanor's in saying ya or nay to Yavanna -- an internal process not affecting events but deeply influencing the inner nature of individuals involved in those events.'
My brevity here does not intend to be unfair to her actual (and full) case in detail however, so I'll refer people to Tolkien Studies VI (in this volume Carl Hostetter also provides some previously unpublished text from JRRT that touches upon the matter).
Also I'm a bit hazy on whether or not she allows for exceptions to that rule (Galadriel when offered the Ring for example), but in any case: I disagree, as do others.
Tolkien once noted...
In Splintered Light (Splintered Light and Splintered Being, page 53) Verlyn Flieger explains:
In 'The Music and the Task: Fate and Free Will in Middle-earth' (Tolkien Studies) Flieger writes:
As I say I must disagree that Elves only have Free Will in this internal sense, but as this is a longish aside...
 |
I must admit that I deliberately omitted Fleiger's idea about the elves, for several reasons.
First of all, I mentioned her mainly because I wanted to be clear that the distinction between coming
with the music rather than being part
of the music was not my own idea. I read it in her
Splintered Light (revised edition)and felt she deserved the acknowledgement.
Secondly, I'm not completely satisfied I understand why she makes that distinction between elves and men, unless it is to bolster her claims about the nature of splintering and of Light in Tolkien's mythology.
As far as I can see, she bases her idea on this passage:
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Of the Beginning of Days, The Silm
For it is said that after the departure of the Valar there was silence, and for an age Iluvatar sat alone in thought. Then he spoke and said: 'Behold I love the Earth, which shall be a mansion for the Quendi and the Atani! But the Quendi shall be the fairest of all earthly creatures, and they shall have and shall conceive and bring forth more beauty than all my Children; and they shall have the greater bliss in this world. But to the Atani I will give a new gift.' Therefore he willed that the hearts of Men should seek beyond the world and should find no rest therein; but they should have a virtue to shape their life, amid the powers and chances of the world, beyond the Music of the Ainur, which is as fate to all things else; and of their operation everything should be, in form and deed, completed, and the world fulfilled unto the last and smallest.
But Iluvatar knew that Men, being set amid the turmoils of th epowers of the world, would stray often, and would not use theirs gifts in harmony; and he said, 'These too in their time shall find that all that they do redounds at the end only to the glory of my work.'
|
In reading this passage as excluding the elves from freedom from the music, she appears to dismiss the earlier passage from The Silm I quoted where both of the Children have free will from the determination of the Music.
My guess is that she established her theory before HoMe was published and has not taken any of the new texts into account in her reading of this passage (in the revised edition). I could be wrong, though, as I have not followed her work and that of others in
Tolkien Studies.
As you suggest, Fleiger doesn't, as far as I recall, discuss this difference between inner effect and outer events in the instance of Galadriel's gift of the Phial to Frodo.
This does not, I think, discount the existence of free will among men.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by tumhalad2
In CoH, Eru, as conceived in the Ainulindale, does not, or cannot, be said to exist. Were he omnipresent, omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent, he would possess the capability and desire to save Turin because he is
1. everywhere at once,
2. has an infinitely good will , and so would under no circumstances allow suffering to occur,
3. would know at all times Turin's whereabout and actions and
4. has no restrictions on his power.
|
As every parent who has successfully navigated the stormy shoals of their child's adolescence knows, sometimes you have to step aside and, in the true benevolence of acknowleding your child's freedom and adulthood, allow your child to make mistakes and thus suffer. For the benefit of allowing your child to reach maturity, you have to impose a restriction on your own benevolence. It is one of the most difficult lessons of parenting. And how much more this applies to adult children.