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detail however, so I'll refer people to Tolkien Studies VI (in this volume Carl Hostetter also provides some previously unpublished text from JRRT that touches upon the matter).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...
Quote:
'According to the fable Elves and Men were the first of these intrusions, made indeed while the 'story' was still only a story and not 'realized'; they were not therefore in any sense conceived or made by the gods, the Valar, and were called the Eruhini or 'Children of God', and were for the Valar an incalculable element: that is they were rational creatures of free will in regard to God, of the same historical rank as the Valar, though of far smaller spiritual and intellectual power and status.'
JRRT, from letter 181, probably 1956
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In Splintered Light (Splintered Light and Splintered Being, page 53) Verlyn Flieger explains:
Quote:
'In a letter to a reviewer of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien declared that both races were "rational creatures of free will in regard to God" (letters 236). The key may lie in the phrase "in regard to God", suggesting that in the sub-created world God, Eru, who proposed the theme but had the Ainur make the music, is himself beyond and above it. This implies a kind of Boethian concept in which the mind of God encompasses any design perceivable by any of his creatures and is explicit in such statements by Eru to the Ainur, as "no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my respite" (Silm 17)
'(...) This seems to make it clear that in Tolkien's cosmology, which encompasses both fate and free will, the mind of the Prime Mover extends beyond the Creation to leave room for what to earthbound perceivers may appear as exceptions to the rule. (...)'
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In 'The Music and the Task: Fate and Free Will in Middle-earth' (Tolkien Studies) Flieger writes:
Quote:
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The trouble lies not with free will, but with fate. Readers who assume (and most do) that characters in Tolkien's invented world are free to choose, find the opposing notion that they are predestined hard to accept. And the idea that both principles are concurrently at work (and apparently at odds) is a concept even harder to encompass. It is, nevertheless, a concept integral to a mythology whose overarching scheme is that fate, conceived as kind of divinely inspired and celestially orchestrated music, governs the created world -- with one exception. of all Middle-earth's sentient species, the race of Men (including Hobbits) is the only group given the "virtue" to "shape their lives" beyond the scope of this music. In contradistinction, the otherwise generally similar race of Elves, (both races being the Children of [the godhead] Iluvatar) is, together with the rest of Creation, ruled by fate.
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As I say I must disagree that Elves only have Free Will in this internal sense, but as this is a longish aside...
