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Originally Posted by Firefoot
Yes, fitting, and he is also the only one who I think is fit for the job. It's not Frodo's job to decide whether Gollum should still live, or Sam's, or Gandalf's, or anybody's. Eru is the only one who can decide such.
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Hmmmm
But, given the choice, would Gollum have wanted to die? If this was a 'mercy killing' on Eru's part it was done without any consultation with the victim. 'I am the Lord your God, & I've decided you will be better off dead. Trust me - its for your own good.'
Sorry - if Eru had created mere robots then He would be free to switch them off whenever He wanted. He didn't - He created sentient beings, who he will hold accountable for their actions. If Elves, Men & Hobbits are His children then He must be as accountable for His treatment of them as any parent would be.
You can't say, 'Well, He's their creator, so He can do as He likes with them.' If a parent decided to kill their child because it was 'best' for them, & would serve the greater good, we'd at least wonder about that parent's sanity & certainly question their love.
Of course, it may be that Eru found Himself
in extremis & had to sacrifice his child, Smeagol, to save all his other children, because there was no other way. But this opens a whole new can of worms - is Eru truly omnipotent? Can He make a rock too heavy for Him to move, etc, etc? If Gollum's death
was a fait accompli, Eru, in His omniscience, must have foreseen it from before the beginning. If He could intervene at the Sammath Naur to bring about the Ring's destruction with the death of Gollum as the inevitable consequence, why could He not have intervened at an earlier point & found some other way to destroy the Ring, sparing Gollum's life? Clearly, intervening in His creation is not 'against the Rules'.
The final point I want to make is, if Eru was omniscient, & knew of (without necessarily
causing) everything that would happen, then He knew all along, even before Smeaqgol was born, that He would cause his death - or at least bring it about.