What my beleif on Tolkien is that characters had choice that was moral, and they were given thus chance to make that choice free of supernatural intervention, but Eru and Mandos and who-not knew that choice. So it really is free will, but just they know what will happen and how it will end up; so rather than being omnipresent and omnipotent through time, its rather like a computer playing chess: They can analyze every possible move, and can draw conclusions what will happen vecause of it, but they cant influence the human players' move.
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