Does Eru care?

[Puddleglum]

Originally Posted by Morsul the Dark

everything has its purpose even evil.

Manwe, upon hearing the final choice of Feanor to rebel (and do deeds to live in song), put it this way.
"Thus, even as Eru said to us shall beauty not before conceived be brought into being, and evil yet be good to have been." To which Mandos added "And yet remain evil."

Which is a difficult concept for (at least) Western thought since we tend to want either:

• Evil deeds to DE-justify any results <or>
• A good end to (in some manner) justify the steps taken to get there.

But Tolkien suggests (and, I think validly) that Evil can produce good results while still remaining evil and, therefor, UN-justified.

He also proposes that Eru is great such that even EVIL deeds will always result in eventual and greater good results - because that's the way Eru is managing it.


I think the key idea to consider in approaching this conundrum is that we do not see the final end results, and so cannot accurately judge whether the "evil" that we see is worth it to have gone through.


Tolkien described the history of Middle Earth as Eru's "Drama". Think in terms of Shakespeare, or Homer, or Mark Twain writing a story or play.

• The memorable ones, the ones worth watching or reading - especially over and over - ALWAYS include what we would call "evil" in some form.
• And, if you lived in the story only in the midst of the evil, you might be tempted to think the author had gone off his rocker to allow such to continue.
• So it is with Tolkien's drama. Evil is present in the mix, by the design of the author - whether you think of that as Tolkien (at one level) or Eru (at another, interior, level) - until, as Ulmo put it "until the Full Making, which Ye call The End."