[The Might]

Hmm, I disagree there, Boro.

Whilst I agree with you that Tolkien may have written different things in the letters due to the depth of his works, I believe most of these occasions concerned lore matters, pure information demanded by the inquirers.

What we have here is a very different thing, not a question about some lore thing, but rather directly questioning Tolkien's own belief.

And I doubt that Tolkien was the kind of person to have used a very Catholic devouted tone to just please a Catholic friend and would in such a case not speak his own mind so as to not offend the reader.

I think that when it comes to this question we must treat it as a special and different case as here The Professor is asked about his own beliefs and would surely know what he is talking. So I believe that when Tolkien writes that Eru is but another name for THE Christian God, he really means that Eru is but another name for THE Christian God. Nothing to do with works written 30 years before, revised and changed. Eru stayed the same, he was God.

And as I read above that God is apparently indeed perceived as an entity of absolute good, it means that Eru is absolute good. We have proof to say that based on the words of the Professor, so why challenge his idea? Think that he only wrote what Mr. Hastings wanted to read? I doubt it.


But, moving on to the true topic that I have somewhat missed whilst concetrating on absolute good in all the works, I believe that absolute good in LotR does not exist.

But some characters do appear to come close to it such as Gandalf as emissary of good and the only one of the Istari to continue to obey the will of the Valar.
I also see Arwen as a person fairly close to absolute good. She lacks the megalomaniac thoughts of Galadriel, she is not spoiled by anything in the world, and her love to Aragorn makes her decide to give up immortality.

EDIT: are the whole Narnia and HP comparisons really of interest to the topic at hand? Whilst I find them an interesting read I cannot help but wonder if they bring us closer to finding absolute good in LotR... after all different authors can have different opinions, opinions what have to be respected and can of course be criticised.