Nebulous "It" and Absolutes

[Lyta_Underhill]

The fact that God knew of the fall of man is not the point. He knew it would happen, but that isn't the same as causing it to happen. god created a good world, in which there was no evil in either the planning or in the making.

Eru creates in full knowledge, a world was, or had become, flawed in the planning stage. He knows all things predicted in the Music will come about, because He has created the world in such a way that they must come about - because 'none' may change the Music in His despite.

This contrast is interesting, and I bow down before your ability to clarify this basic underpinning of the two worlds, davem! This should go in an FAQ somewhere! However, I do get odd notions from the contrast as well. (Being not versed in theology or in the finer labels of philosophical theory, I must relegate my insights to "notions.")

First, having God know of but not influence the fall of man seems to separate Him from us in a fundamental way, distancing the Creator from the created, putting us alone into a universe that you might argue has been marred by our own actions. Thus, it suggests that theory that God set the universe in motion and allowed it to take its course by means of physical laws and "free will," that any intervention would be from outside, by a force greater than us and also alien to us. In a way, it can lead to as much despair as a view where the Creator builds His music into us and our sufferings are pre-ordained. If you ascribe to God a separateness from Man and thus a lack of connection between Him and us, it might suggest that he does not control the outcome of His creation but can only reach a hand in every now and then to correct his "experiment."

The Eru hypothesis would suggest that He knows it all, and that the sufferings of men and our hero Frodo are part of the larger Music. In a way, this view gives me more hope than the bleak idea that we bring our suffering upon ourselves, by our own choices of evil. If you accept as axiomatic that men are flawed and susceptible to evil, then a man "falling" to evil in our universe is like a man devouring himself, becoming, in effect, evil himself. Frodo's fall, however, is inevitable, and, however much it makes him suffer, it is a direct connection to the universe and to the Music. It puts Frodo in the position of fighting the Long Defeat directly and in a key way, rather than stumbling through and suffering for nothing. I don't think this takes ALL of Frodo's free will from him, though, as he is free to abandon the quest at any point but chooses not to do so. This bespeaks an inner strength, and in my opinion, is not inevitable, but directly willed. In a sense, Frodo IS the Music, rather than being a puppet of Eru.

I am not sure I have explained this properly and I am running out of time, so hopefully it is clear enough.

Second point: The fundamental difference davem points out givs me the same feeling I got when looking at the plain wood back walls of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyworld one year, when I performed with a marching band at the opening of Epcot Center (yes, I'm that old!). The walls and concrete sidewalk were so bleak and unlike my childhood experiences on the ride itself that, even though I know it to be a construct, the seeing of it destroys the illusion on another level, and now Pirates of the Caribbean is an even cheesier memory! (Not that I'd give up the odd experience of seeing the back end of a pirate realm!)

In a way, this rings with the idea of sub creation, the limitations of Man in the arena of the divine. No matter how he struggles to paint a complete picture, there is always something that he must consider on man's level and not God's/Eru's . Eru is a reflection, a sub-creation, but the mysteries and questions raised by both are fundamentally unresolvable from our point of view (at least in my point of view.). I personally find it more rewarding to allow mysteries to exist, rather than to rail against them, since the latter is ultimately futile and creates more unhappiness than fulfillment. Thus, I cherish not only my 6 year old wonder at the dark splashes of bizarre pirates that sing and don't move and exist only for my pleasure, but also the stark walls and concrete behind them, the construct that somehow holds in a world I can enjoy without having to regret that the walls are there.

Now that time has run out, and I must attend to the day, I hope my thoughts have interested some of you, or at least been a bit amusing!

Cheers!
Lyta

[The Saucepan Man]

Well, there's a difference between allowing the possibility of evil, & allowing the presence of evil. Eru, as you say, must allow for the former, but the latter is not necessary.

Eru creates Arda with the 'presence' of evil inherent within it, not just the 'possibility' of it.

But once Eru imbued his children with free will, he had to accept the consequences, even though they might exercise that free will in such a way as to give rise to evil. Otherwise, he would be denying them the very free will which he gave them.

Eru created the Ainur with free will. As you say, davem, this allowed for the possibility of evil. He then allowed the Ainur to be involved in the conception of Arda through their participation in the Music. Melkor chose to exercise his free will in a way that gave rise to the certainty that evil would exist once the "blueprint" of Arda created by the Music was brought into being. But, if Eru were to have prevented that happening (for example by scrapping that "blueprint" and starting afresh), he would have been denying Melkor his free will. He was thus obliged to allow the possibility of evil to become a reality when Arda was created.

Eru also allowed his other children (Elves and Men) and his adopted children (Dwarves) to have free will. Because evil existed within Arda, they had the option to exercise their free will for evil purposes. (They may have been able to do so even had evil not exisited within Arda at its creation, courtesy of Melkor, but that is another issue.)

Why did Eru allow his children free will? Well, it is impossible for us to say, but it seems to me that the whole thing would have been rather a pointless exercise had he not done so. Without free will, the denizens of Arda would have been akin to automatons, simply living their lives according to fixed path which Eru had ordained. And, as Hookbill has said, they would have had no appreciation of their own innate goodness (and that of Eru), since there would have been no alternative with which to compare it.

So, where does this leave Frodo? Well, since evil existed in Arda, it was inevitable that certain individuals would be required to address the consequences of its presence. Frodo is not the only individual who suffered as a consequence of the existence of evil within Arda. There were, of course, countless others. Some must take at least some responsibility for their own suffering (as a result of the manner in which they exercised their free will), while others are entirely (or largely) innocent, but suffer primarily as a result of the way in which others exercise their free will. Frodo falls into the latter category. Once Sauron created the Ring (exercising his own free will) it was inevitable that someone would have to undergo the hardships that Frodo underwent and suffer the losses that he suffered in order to prevent (or at least try to prevent) Sauron prevailing. Frodo just happened to be that someone.

Or did he? What I find interesting is the way in which it appears that Eru intervenes to help bring about the destruction of the Ring. Eru cannot just intervene willy-nilly, since, by doing so, he denies the free will of those involved in the struggle. But, the way I see it, he does appear to intervene directly on at least two occasions. The first is when Bilbo first finds the Ring, if we are to take Gandalf's statement that it was intended that he find it (and not by its maker) at face value. The second is at Sammath Naur, when Gollum "fortuitously" slips and falls into the Crack of Doom with the Ring.

Now, I can understand Eru's intervention on the second occasion, since Frodo had done all that could have been expected of him. He could not voluntarily destroy the Ring because his free will was effectively negated by the Ring. In such circumstances, it seems justifiable to me for Eru to intervene to prevent Sauron's victory (which would have been inevitable, had Gollum not slipped). Frodo effectively had no free will at that point, so there was no free will for Eru to deny him by intervening.

But what about the first occasion? Admittedly, had Bilbo (or someone) not found the Ring, it would probably have been found by an Orc, in which case it would have swiftly found its way back to its Master. But why choose Bilbo to find it, thus practically ensuring that Bilbo or, more likely, his heir (Frodo) would be the one required to undergo the suffering involved in seeking to destroy it? In this sense, it seems to me to have been ordained by Eru that Frodo would be the one chosen to undertake this task. And this seems to me to be a violation of Frodo's free will. Although he undertook the Quest willingly he really had no clear idea as to precisely how it would affect him (as davem has said) and, in any event, he probably had no real choice in the matter since, once he became the Ringbearer, it seems unlikely that he would have been capable voluntarily of giving the Ring up. Had he not agreed to undertake the Quest, Sauron would probably have been the victor one way or another.

So the real question for me is why did Eru intervene in the way that he did at that moment when Bilbo was lost in the tunnels under the Misty Mountains? Surely he could have intervened in another way which would have prevented the Ring falling into Orcish hands. Of course, then someone else (one of the Dwarves perhaps, or his heir) would have had to have undertaken the Quest which Frodo eventually undertook (thus effectively denying that person (Dwarf?) their free will). But why did Eru choose Bilbo to find it and, therefore, Frodo to be the one to undertake the Quest of Mount Doom?

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Saucepan Man, the ring in the hands of a Dwarf may not have necessarily been a good thing. Reason not withstanding, Hobbits had an incredible resistance to the rings power, A Dwarf may have not had the will or strength to even take up the challenge, only one with the simplicity and innocence of a Hobbit could do the deed, but I think Frodo will have known that If he was to accomplish the deed he would have to sacrifice much.

The Message I think Tolkien wants us to read from this is, The Hobbits were not over occupied with war or the memory of war; battle and power was not impotent to them.

"Elves and Dragons! Cabbages and potatoes are better for you."

Gaffer Gamgee

This pretty much sums up the attitude of the Hobbits. Their innocence was what made them resilient to the ring, Eru knew this, and so you can trace the pattern all the way back to when Olorin was created, Perhaps Gandalf's purpose was to send Bilbo on this mission to the Lonely mountain and so find the ring on the way, thus entangling himself in all deeds concerning the ring.

In U-T it tells us of how Gandalf remembered Bilbo as a child;

"Somehow I had been attracted by Bilbo Long before, as a child, and a young Hobit: he had not quite come of age when I had last seen him. He had stayed in my mind ever since, with his eagerness and his bright eyes, and his love of tales, and his questions about the wide world outside the Shire. As soon as I entered the shire I had news of him. He was getting talked about, it seemed. Both his parents had died early for Shire-folk, at about 80; and he had never married. He was already grown a bit queer, they said, and went off for days by himself. He could even be seen talking to strangers, even Dwarves!
Gandalf, Unfinished Tales, the Quest of Erebor

It is my belief that Eru Purposed it that Gendalf should remember Bilbo and so send him on this task, because hobbits had such resilience to the ring, he knew the ring would be dropped by Gollum, so he guided Bilbo's hand to find it. Old Olorin then left Bilbo with the choice to give up the ring of his own free will or to keep it, or be it with a little encouragement.

[The Saucepan Man]

Doh! I realised soon after I posted my contribution above that, by intervening to ensure the destruction of the Ring, Eru is denying Sauron his free will in the same way that he would have denied Melkor his free will had he not allowed the "tainted blueprint" of Arda to come into being.

Hmm. Perhaps Eru's intervention is only justified when its effect is to avert circumstances which would otherwise inevitably result in a total victory for the forces of evil. Which would justify his intervention in the tunnels under the Misty Mountains, since otherwise the Ring would almost certainly have found its way back to Sauron. But that does not explain why Eru chose Bilbo to find it and seemingly ordained Frodo to destroy it.

Reason not withstanding, Hobbits had an incredible resistance to the rings power, A Dwarf may have not had the will or strength to even take up the challenge, only one with the simplicity and innocence of a Hobbit could do the deed

I most certainly agree with that, Hookbill. I have always considered Hobbits to have a peculiar resistance to the effects of the Ring and therefore the most suitable candidates for Ringbearer (although not proto-Hobbits, as Smeagol's miserable life shows us). But this brings us back to the question posed by davem some while back: how can Eru be justified in choosing Frodo for the task in circumstances in which he (Frodo) cannot possibly concieve the scale of the loss which he will suffer in carrying it out, and in which, once the Ring comes into his possession, he really has very little choice in the matter (if Sauron's victory is to be averted).

Perhaps it just comes down to the fact that, unless Eru had taken it upon himself to destroy the Ring by direct intervention (a serious negation of free will), someone had to do it. And, of all the available candidates, perhaps Frodo was best suited to the task.

[Bêthberry]

Without addessing some of the major points in the discussion here, I would like to offer a slight observation about what can be said of dwarves, as I believe a special case is made of their relationship to the rings. My references are to Appendix A, "Durin's Folk".

There are several passages which suggest that dwarves were more impervious to the Ring's ability to inflame desire for power than other peoples. Among Durin's Folk, it was believed that the dwarven Ring was the first of the Seven to be forged and was given to Durin III, King of Khazad-dûm, by no less than the elven smiths themselves rather than by Sauron (who of course still had his hand in forging it). (II am rather shamelessly paraphrasing and condensing Tolkien here.) The Ring was held in secret by the dwarven kings.

The particular power of the Ring over the dwarves is explained thusly:

None the less it may well be, as the Dwarves now believe, that Sauron by his arts had discovered who had this Ring, the last to remain free, and that the singular misfortunes of the heirs of Durin were largely due to his malice. For the Dwarves had proved unmanageable by this means. The only power over them that the Rings wielded was to inflame their hearts with a greed of gold and precious things, so that if they lacked them all other good things seemed profitless, and athey were filled with wrath and desire for vengeance on all who deprived them. But they were made from their beginning of a kind to resist most steadfastly any domination. Though they could be slain or borken, they could not be reduced to shadows enslaved to another will; and for the same reason their lives ere not affected by an Ring, to live either longer or shorter becasuse of it. All the more did Sauron hate the possessors and desire to dispossess them. [my bolding]

I suppose this can actually suggest a reason why a dwarf could not carry the One Ring, that dwarves had already drawn the wrath and malice of Sauron and might be greater targets than Frodo.

Still, I think it is clear from the Appendix that the dwarves might indeed have the strength not only to take up the challenge but to persevere. That in itself might provide less dramatic potential than the slow process of Frodo's struggle with the Ring. Yet let us give the dwarves their just due.

As an interesting extrapolation of this,we might consider if in fact the body of LOTR, the text proper as opposed to the addenda, supports this view of dwarves as impervious to domination. And, indeed, if The Hobbit and The Silm do as well. Is this quality as apparent in the texts as it is in the historical documentation? If not, that might account for the very different interpretations of dwarves offerred in this thread.

[davem]

And yet the question remains, if creatures can be held accountable for their freely willed choices & actions, can their creator? Does Eru bear any responsibility for His choices - from His creation of a 'flawed' Arda, down to His choice of Frodo to bear the Ring?

He seems to allow freedom of action to His Children up to a point - the point that His plan seems to be put at risk - then He simply takes it away :Frodo claims the Ring, the Nazgul will then, as Tolkien shows in Letters, sieze it & surrender it to Sauron, so, at that point, Eru steps in & puts everything right (or rather, puts His plan back on course). So, we are free to do what we want - except change the Music. But then, how much freedom do we actually have? Eru will step in to manipulate events & even individuals. It almost seems that to Eru, the 'plan', the Music is more important than the freedom of His children.

But maybe this is to avoid complete anarchy? But then why give His Children freedom at all if He has already decided what will be permitted & what will not? Will the Children ever be allowed to grow beyond childhood, or will their Father always be running things - a 'benevolent dictator', in Plato's words?

Lyta, I think Tolkien did think of God as being seperate from His creation, & intervening (directly) only at specific times, but retaining overall control of the direction of the Universe. But we come then to what Tolkien understood God's nature to be. If we take one of his fellow TCBSite GB Smith's elegies for Rob Gilson we find: 'Tolkien & the Great War'

' One piece declares a stark view of Divine providence: Gilson's death is "a sacrifice of blood outpoured" to a God whose purposesare utterly inscrutable & who "only canst be glorified/ By man's own passion & the Supreme pain"'

Does Tolkien share this view of God? And are we seeing this 'gloryfication' of Eru in Frodo's 'passion & Supreme pain'? But isn't this too close to saying Eru is some kind of ego maniac, some kind of mad dictator, glorying in the suffering of His slaves? Or some kind of Ozymandias, declaring 'look on my works, ye mighty & despair'? And if that is the case, who could blame the athiests for laughing at his broken statue?

Do we find Eru to 'loving' & self sacrificing? Do we even find the Valar to be so. Certainly not in what we would consider to be a Chistian sense. But perhaps we are dealing here with a vision of the Divine which has come out of loss - of parents, friends & the 'blue remembered hills' of a lost, irretrievable childhood. Why has God allowed so much loss - was Smith right? Does our suffering 'glorify' God? Or does God not really care for us - which is the worse option? And, as long as Eru puts everything right in the end, isn't that enough (well, perhaps - as long as we don't question too deeply, & hold to our faith & trust - estel).

Of course, we could step back & see the story of Frodo as the story of 'Everyman'. We all have to take up our Ring (or our Cross) & walk our own via Dolorosa, be broken before we can be re-made. And maybe it is for our own good, & has to be that way, & we have to be free to fall. But we come back to the point - does Eru bear any responsibility for the suffering of His Children? By creating sentient Children, capable of suffering, & putting them into a world where they will suffer, does Eru in any sense have to at least account for Himself to His children?

Perhaps that is the reason for Eru's incarnation which the Athrabeth speaks about. Not as in Christianity, to save mankind from the consequence of its sin, but simply to suffer alongside His Children. Perhaps that in itself is Eru's calling Himself to account. Perhaps in that act He is suffering alongside Frodo, not saving him.

[littlemanpoet]

I read something recently that responds quite succinctly to some of what is being debated here, about the "why" of suffering in terms of God or Eru. It explores five different answers to the question, and shows that each answer is lacking.

Suffering is a punishment. The argument: I must have done something awful for this to be happening to me. God can't be to blame, so I must be. But children never deserve to be abused by their parents, and loved ones never deserve to be killed by drunk drivers. So this answer can't be right.

Suffering sensitizes us. The argument: The purpose of suffering is to leave us more compassionate and tender. The problem is that the price is too high. Do some people have to starve in order to make me thankful for food? If God would do awful things to other people just to teach me lessons, he's not worth worshiping.

Suffering is a result of our free will. The argument: This is the "fallen world" argument. Our own choices have caused the world's pain; the mess is our mess. But no one chooses to have cancer. Victims of murder, rape, etc., never chose the crime committed against them. Suffering is a personal problem, not an "issue"; if an explanation doesn't hold up in the emergency room, it doesn't really help.

Suffering is a Test. The argument: Through suffering we discover what we are made of. Problem is that not all suffering has the benefit of testing our character. What's the test when an earthquake kills thousands in a Third World earthquake? A god who is obsessed with testing his creatures is not one of love and grace.

Suffering is simply a part of human life. The idea here is that our moments of pain are part of the natural rhythm of life; suffering just is going to happen, it's part of the human condition. The problem with this notion is in the specific cases: how can a baby born with an addiction to crack ever be seen as a natural part of life's rhythms? If you hang with this idea, you end up with a random succession of events that are either painful or joyful but have no purpose. Grave doubts would ensue about the benefit of having a god or a life.

Then the book offers an alternative, which is that the "why" of suffering is unanswerable as such, and is actually a prayer instead of a question seeking a propositional answer. Suffering's only answer is a numinous experience. For those of us from the Judeo-Christian tradition, we see this represented in Job, who lost everything, asked all kinds of "why" questions, and finally saw God; once he did, he no longer needed the question answered; having seen God was his answer.

Here's what I've been leading up to: I wonder if Frodo's vision was not Tolkien's presentation of the numinous experience that was the answer to Frodo for all his suffering? "...at last on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise." Scent and sight and sound. It's all there: a new dawn, something being "rolled back as a scroll", as it were, and a far green country that puts me in mind of both Niggle's Parish, and the distant mountains in "The Great Divorce" by C.S. Lewis. This numinous experience that Tolkien describes is meant for the reader just as much as it's meant for Frodo. No other answer satisfies for Frodo's suffering.

"May your song always be sung."

LMP