[obloquy]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Now, building on what Legate and Lommy have said, you have to pose the question, if Eru was The One and was Omnipotent, then he must also have created the darkness from which Ungoliant may or may not have stemmed?

Stemmed? You folks make her sound like a blossom from the Evil tree. "The darkness" was the empty space that "lies about Arda," like the darkness around our own Earth. There's absolutely no reason to make her into some peculiar manifestation of evil.

So in whatever conclusion, Ungoliant was created by Eru.

Yep. How is this even an observation worth making?

That of course makes you think of Ye Olde Chicken And Egg Question.

No it doesn't. How is this at all corollary?

Eru must have made himself.

Aaargh, I feel about 14 again and wondering what all this stuff about God was and how he could possibly have made himself! Taoism...?

Why must he have done so? Any discussion of the origin of things requires the acceptance of something prime, whether it's a singularity, empty space (which, as a multi-dimensional canvas, is manifestly more complex than nothing) or a creative consciousness. Why the illogical meanderings of a 14-year-old mind have any bearing on this discussion, I do not know.

We still cannot rule out the chance that there are other existences than Arda, which may have been created by Eru. After all, not all the Ainur came down to Arda, and we have no concept of how many remained with him, nor do we know if he even needed any Ainur to build worlds. Eru could have created other existences outside the Ainur and the Music (that's a good idea, Legate!).

Of course we can. We can rule out the chance because Tolkien never even implied it. We don't have to, though. You're welcome (naturally--you don't need my permission) to imagine all kinds of fan fiction, but it really has nothing to do with Ungoliante.

Now of course Tolkien was the creator of Eru as he wouldn't have existed if Tolkien had not dreamed him up and committed him to paper. But is that too simple? If you completely give yourself up to the story then Tolkien was not the creator, he was merely telling it. Yet can we do that? Can we as modern readers with critical minds ever truly think that this has a separate existence to Tolkien? I BLAH BLAH PRETENSION BLAH BLAH so I'm not going to think on that one any more tonight...

Obviously you can. You just proposed (above) that we seriously consider the possibility that Iluvatar had other creative projects from which Ungoliante might have emigrated, despite the fact that Tolkien never indicated that he did, nor even entertained the possibility. In doing this you have removed Tolkien from the creative role, leaving only Iluvatar. You attribute to Iluvatar the power to create without Tolkien's guidance.