And Eru Smiled

[davem]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

If one assumes that Eru = God (of Catholics,etc), then when Eru says "Stop", it must happen. As in creation, "God said, "let there be light," and there was light", etc, etc.

Way, way too much of an assumtion for me! Eru is as much an invented character as Frodo or Feanor. Eru sprang from Tolkien's mind, while Tolkien sprang from God's mind. One can discuss the nature & motives of Eru as one can the nature & motives of any other character in the story because on one level all the inhabitants of Middle earth are equal in that they are inventions of an author. One can declare Eru is stupid, callous, lazy, incompetent, etc, because one is 'greater' than Eru. One cannot make the same kind of judgement of God, because God is greater than we are.

Jumping back on my hobby-horse for a moment, this is the danger of bringing primary world baggage into the secondary world. Eru is not, cannot be, God. The most he can be is a reflection of Tolkien's idea of God - but we can't even be sure He's that. We can't make any one to one correlation between Eru & God. All we can say is that Eru is the supreme deity of Middle earth & while we sojourn there we must accept Him as that, but while we are there we must leave God in the primary world (well, to be precise, we must keep the worlds seperate - God is not Eru or vice versa, anymore than Shelob is Lilith ). Our knowlege of the one may inform our understanding of the other, but that is subjective & optional.

(Just wanted to clarify my position in case anyone took offence at my post - I wasn't saying God is lazy)