[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Raynor

Well, if you could give a better solution...

Being omnipotent, nothing was beyond him, so he could presumably have surgically removed the corrupt (and the corruptor) and left the Faithful. The wholescale destruction of an island and all its inhabitants does seem rather a blunt weapon, although suitable perhaps for the fleet. Then again, it probaly wouldn't have made for such a compelling tale ...

Which leads me back to the point that I am more interested in. The destruction of Numenor provides a stirring image within the fantasy world which Tolkien created. But, for those of us who have a problem with the justice of it (and I, like davem, reserve the right, as a reader, to judge the actions of a fictional character in a novel, deity or no deity), this does surely have an impact on our understanding of that world.

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

But I can reconcile this as the action of Eru, who is a very odd kind of god. He's not the kindly sort of God that modern worshippers know, but more the Old Testament type of God who would happily smite you down just for fun, for a bit of a cosmic joke.

I can readily accept the analogy between Eru and the God of the Old Testament. But I disagree that this resolves the problem, since I have no inclination to accept as credible that work, nor indeed to reconcile the portrayal of the God it presents with real life experience. But Tolkien is asking me, if I am to find his fantasy word credible, to accept as the source of all goodness within it the fictional God that he presents. Fine. But I find that credibility stretched to be told on the one hand that Eru is the embodiment and source of good within that world and that anything contrary to his will is evil, but be presented on the other hand with a deed perpetrated by him which I find hard to characterise as "good".

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

That's just how Eru is - and it works if you consider the difficulties Tolkien himself had with reconciling his belief in God with the real horrors he saw on the Somme ...

That doesn't help me either. I don't share Tolkien's beliefs, and so I have a different perspective from him on the horrors of the Somme (and other attrocities perpetrated by man against man). And we are not talking here about attrocities committed by the Men of Tolkien's world (who are subject to corruption), or by those committed by the proponents of evil and their minions. We are talking about an attrocity (as some, myself included, see it), perpetrated by one who, by his very nature, is presented as being free from all corruption and the highest ideal for all those characters within Middle-earth that we are supposed to (and, by their actions do) admire.

In other words, while I can admire the deeds of the likes of Elrond, Gandalf, Aragorn, Frodo and Sam I cannot admire this one deed of the character whom they are presented as serving and to whom they aspire (whether they know it or not).

To my mind, it presents a logical flaw in the world which Tolkien portrays.