Are Orcs That Bad?

[Anárion Cúthalion]

Originally Posted by skip spence

*phew* (if Nogrod agrees with me I know I'm on the right track)



You're right, in Tolkien's world there is no absolute evil (maybe I was sloppy expressing myself before). Eru is Good and the norm and as everything comes from him there can be no autonomous evil principle. Or can it? Not so sure about that actually, couldn't he have created that too just because? Well. in theory perhaps but not in Arda...



I suppose that whichever choice Eru made it was still Good as he is the norm. Eru makes no mistakes as there is no-one above him with the authority to judge him.

I believe it was the theologist Sorenson who said that evil as we understand it is merely "shadow", that evil is not a separate comcept by a twisted version of good. Perhaps Tolkien was influenced in some manner by that thought.