Absolute Good in Lord of the Rings

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Gollum the Great

While I agree with most of what you said, Lal, I take issue with this.



From what I read of Eru (not from the Elves perspective), he was ME's God. Being God meant being "Goodness" itself, as a devout Catholic like Tolkien would hold.

I don't know whether he was 'God' as in the Real World 'God', and if he was then there's a lot of interpretations of that, though he may well have been Tolkien's vision of what God was/is like. But I go from what's in the texts and in the Sil Eru doesn't state he is anything (in terms of good/bad or other judgements) other than he 'is'. And he also strikes me as like the vision of God (real world this time - I should be strict and distinguish them by using/omitting capital letters ) we see in the Book of Job, who demonstrates that he is beyond our notions of good/bad by doing some quite horrible things to Job - and thus emphasising both his omnipotence and his mystery.

That's what I mean by the concept of 'Goodness' not really applying to Eru.