Sauron vs. Your Mama - A Discussion of Power in Middle-earth

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by alatar

Think that this is what I was getting at. If, in heaven, there will be free-willed spirits/souls, and, by definition, being in the presence of God cannot contain evil, why could not the Creator create a world with free will and not evil (or, again as some posit, so much)? Why the "prerequisite?"

Regardless, as I don't want to start another brouhaha, but how does evil differ in the world that Tolkien created? To me it seems that the free will - evil connection is not to the same degree, if it exists at all in Arda.

Well, I don't want to start that brouhaha you wished to avoid, but isn't the real problem the fact that the Creator, whether it is Eru or Tolkien's real God, cannot create something as perfect as He is? (I seem to recall this as a topic of discussion on "Paradise Lost". Could even have been a Second Age discussion, it was that long ago.)

So for every Creator, the actual object of creation always fails to live up to the concept originally entertained?

[obloquy]

"As perfect"? Are there degrees of perfection?

Any theory of what an infinite, omnipotent being is capable of is suspect. The dimensions of God (even simply as a concept) are so far from being fathomable that application of physical laws or philosophical ideas is akin to using a ruler to determine the temperature of the sun. If you're going to ask questions about the abilities of a being that supposedly predates all physical creation, it should be this: How could God be subject to laws that, by definition, govern that which is created?

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Well, I don't want to start that brouhaha you wished to avoid, but isn't the real problem the fact that the Creator, whether it is Eru or Tolkien's real God, cannot create something as perfect as He is? (I seem to recall this as a topic of discussion on "Paradise Lost". Could even have been a Second Age discussion, it was that long ago.)

By definition. Or not, as what created God? How could perfection create non-perfection? Unless what we perceive as paradise lost is actually perfect, albeit from a different point of view.

Even I haven't the energy to whip this horse.

So for every Creator, the actual object of creation always fails to live up to the concept originally entertained?

As far as we know. It's been considered that the death of gods comes from boredom. What's the point if you know everything that is, was and will be, down to the fall of every sparrow's feather? Maybe the perfect universes don't include sentient beings or entropy - kind of like well-made dioramas.