The Scourge of The Dark Side...Tolkien and Modernism

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Originally Posted by Morthoron

Fate and predestination are two separate issues. There is certainly a great measure of fate that applies to the book, but predestination (as you are using the term) does not require free will on the part of characters, whereas fate does. You are speaking from a Calvinist view of predestination (where even heaven's elect is a small, finite number), and not a Catholic one (to which Tolkien would certainly adhere). The Catholic doctrine holds Calvinist predestination as heretical because it does not include the free will of the individual to choose good or evil (which is certainly an aspect of Tolkien's corpus). Here is a summarization of the Catholic view (from the Catholic Encyclopedia):

This I find interesting. I do understand that Tolkien's view of faith, or rather, the view expressed in LotR and his other works, is separate from predestination. What I don't understand is why.

According to the doctrinal decisions of general and particular synods, God infallibly foresees and immutably preordains from eternity all future events (cf. Denzinger, n. 1784), all fatalistic necessity, however, being barred and human liberty remaining intact (Denz., n. 607

Is that not an oxymoron? How can God infallibly foresee and preordain all future events and man still be free? This idea I can't even begin to grasp. If God knows all future choices a man will take, how can he then be free? There's only one path for him and it's predestined. Or does this mean that God can preordain all futire events if he wants too, but doesn't, in respect to man's free will? I'd appreciate if you, or anyone else, can help me understand this concept.