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?