Lord Melkor Rightful Master of the Fates of Arda - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Legate of Amon Lanc · 04-14-2007, 02:14 PM

(ad davem's first post after my last one)
This is partially a paradox, because we are speaking of some state where you should ask someone who does not exist yet if he wanted to exist. To ask someone whether he wants to exist, you have to first bring him to existence, ergo, this is unsolvable, since by bringing him to existence you already chose instead of him.
Moving to the line of speculation, however, we might assume that, Eru being omniscient, he might know that all the beings will finally thank him and will reply that they wanted to exist. This is only a speculation, though, but it occured to me as one possibility of a solution. Otherwise, as I said above, the question is probably still unsolvable because of the paradox - if we don't happen to think of anything else.

04-14-2007, 02:14 PM	#11
Legate of Amon Lanc A Voice That Gainsayeth Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: In that far land beyond the Sea Posts: 7,431	(ad davem's first post after my last one) This is partially a paradox, because we are speaking of some state where you should ask someone who does not exist yet if he wanted to exist. To ask someone whether he wants to exist, you have to first bring him to existence, ergo, this is unsolvable, since by bringing him to existence you already chose instead of him. Moving to the line of speculation, however, we might assume that, Eru being omniscient, he might know that all the beings will finally thank him and will reply that they wanted to exist. This is only a speculation, though, but it occured to me as one possibility of a solution. Otherwise, as I said above, the question is probably still unsolvable because of the paradox - if we don't happen to think of anything else. __________________ "Should the story say 'he ate bread,' the dramatic producer can only show 'a piece of bread' according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general and picture it in some form of his own." -On Fairy-Stories