Eru letting Melkor go..

[Salocin]

I can only agree that Eru could not deprive the new world and it's inhabitants of free choice by destroying Melkor and setting the ONLY way of existance.

For there to be a Choice, there must be two sides, God's Side, and the devil's

If someone has to have originally made the choice to disobey, how could the devil/Melkor have chosen that path? I believe Eru did not destroy Melkor for the same reason God does not end the life of evil men like Hitler; because they could, in theory, repent, not to see what havoc they can cause on the world and only partially to test the good.

Whether it's because the creator just isn't that nice, or because of a higher purpose or a greater reason that we don't yet know about, we won't know until The End.

(my emphasis)

Are you saying Eru is not good? I believe the deffinition of good is doing God's will. Aside from that I can see how many people may think certain events could only happen if there was a mean, malitious, or even evil god, but I am convinced these cases have logical explanations and that these people are just looking at the wrong view of a good God (maybe a cushy, feel goody, touchy-feelly God?) or do not want to believe in a good God or even any god and have to face their own sinfulness.

i guess my original Thesis was related to the Yin and Yang Theory. without the "Evil" you cannot define "Good" and vise versa, and im sure that was in Iluvitars plan.

Speeking purely about Illuvatar (and not God) I would like to point out that Tolkien was Catholic (and quite devout at too; he made his wife convert for the Church of England before he would marry her) and I doubt he would modle Illuvaltar on any god but the Christian one.

From the view of reality and Middle Earth, I do not see how evil would be required to define good if God/Eru exsisted for all eternity and evil only exsisted once the devil/Melkor rebeled. Eternity is an oftly long time for something to exist without being defined.

In short, I see no way that Illuvaltar could be moddled after the Yin Yang modle of the universe.