# The interventions of Eru



## Parsifal (Nov 20, 2010)

The great paradox about Christianity and other monotheistic religions has to me always been the interventions by the Creator.
The same applies for Tolkiens Universe, which is ofcours heavily based on the Catholic faith.

Eru is the creator of all, and each and every being that came from him is only a large or small part of his mind. Thus from Eru comes not only all that is Good, but also the seeds of Melkor's Fall, and thus all the Evil and Suffering that came from it.

Also Eru would be all-knowing. Posessing all the knowledge of past, present and future, and all the thoughts and ideas every single creature in his Creation had or would ever have. While Melkor may have thought himself he was rebelling against Eru, in fact he was only doing the task for which he was Created.

Why then, at some points, did Eru have to physically intervene in Ea, even though he was Outside of it? 
Why did he have to give Free Will to the Dwarves, and lecture Aule like a naughty child?
Why did he have to stop the Numenoreans, destroying them and even Bending the World?

Even before the Creation Eru knew these things would happen. The seeds of Men's rebellion come from him, even the souls of the Dwarves themselves have to be a part of his mind.


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## Alcuin (Dec 1, 2010)

You are talking about the paradox of Free Will, which is Divine Foreknowledge versus Predestination and the Problem of Evil. 

The problem is typically presented this way.If 


Eru is good,
How can Eru permit evil?
and if 


Eru is omniscient (He knows everything, past, present, and future, no matter how insignificant),
How can Men (or Elves) truly possess Free Will?
then


Since Eru permits evil, and
Eru is omniscient,
Eru predestined some to be good and some to be evil.
Therefore Eru is either unfair and evil, or Eru likes evil and is evil.
That’s the basic argument put forth by philosophers since the days of Socrates. That, along with his cooperation with the Thirty Tyrants – not to mention an insufferable arrogance during his trial – got him executed. 

The proposition conflates (mashes together and thereby confuses the difference between) _foreknowledge_ – seeing the whole of existence outside of time, as a complete tapestry rather than a moving image – and predestination. In other words, Eru knows what Fëanor or Morgoth or Sauron or Ar-Pharazôn is going to do, so Eru must be either responsible for it because he knew about it (and presumably should not have made them in the first place), or else Eru made them do it. 

The argument “works” because it overlooks the fact that Eru is not travelling through Time and bound to it in the same way as Men and Elves. It’s a neat trick for Morgoth and Sauron to use against Elves and especially again Men, who must needs travel through Time to reach their destination and so, in many cases, cannot conceive that there is anyone who does _not_ travel through Time as they do. 

Change perspective – imagine being _outside_ Time, able to observe everything at once – and Free Will makes sense: Time is the agency through which Free Will is enacted, the medium in which choices are made; without it, everything happens at once.

If you accept that Free Will exists for creatures travelling through Time, the obvious result is that some creatures with Free Will can _choose_ to do bad things: they can choose to rebel against Eru. If Eru removes that ability, then Eru also removes Free Will. Blaming Eru for a free creature’s free action is an effort to change the definition of Free Will and hope no one notices.

-|-

Eru intervened twice before Eä began in the Music of the Ainur. After Melkor fouled the First Theme, Eru introduced a Second Theme. After Melkor fouled the Second Theme, Eru intervened again by dramatically stopping the Music. 

Eru intervenes and fundamentally changes Arda when the Númenóreans invade Aman: the Valar are forbidden to kill them, and they do not have sufficient subcreative power to alter Arda to deter them without killing lots and lots of people. They lay down their authority over Arda for a while, and Eru devises a solution.

It is not stated directly, but apparently Eru intervenes when Gandalf dies after killing the Balrog. It seems to be the case (as *Galin* pointed out to me somewhere) that it was Eru who sent Gandalf back to Middle-earth to help complete the overthrow of Sauron. 

In _Morgoth’s Ring_, in the essay “Athrabeth Finrod Ah Andreth” (“The Debate of Finrod and Andreth”), Andreth tells Finrod of the “Old Hope”, that “the One will himself enter into Arda, and heal Men and all the Marring from the beginning to the end.” This “Old Hope” is a belief in a direct intervention by Eru, and a clear implication of reckoning and redress at the end of the story of Arda (end of Time).


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## Parsifal (Dec 1, 2010)

Alcuin said:


> The problem is typically presented this way.
> If
> 
> 
> ...



More like:

All that exists comes, in its beginning, from Eru,
There is both Evil and Good in the world, always in balance/harmony with eachother,
Therefore Eru too must be a mixture both Evil and Good. (Neutral?)



Alcuin said:


> Eru is omniscient (He knows everything, past, present, and future, no matter how insignificant),
> How can Men (or Elves) truly possess Free Will?


No, I can understand free will. I picture every being as a part (or copy of a part) of Eru's mind, released from the other parts of his mind. Therefore, each individual does have a free will, but it CAN NOT be really opposed to the will of Eru, for in the beginning even that free will is a part of Eru Himself.

So why would Eru intervene to destroy the Numenoreans, and send back Gandals to destroy Sauron?

The Numenoreans would not have been able to alter their fate, for even on Valinor they would be mortal. (That being on Valinor itself would grant immortality, or that the Valar held back immortality from Men, was a lie by Sauron, obviously.) Thus his "Gift" to Men would have remained unaltered, and Valinor was just a creation of the Valar, why would he even care? Eru did not intervene when Melkor threw down the Lamps, or destroyed the Trees.

If He wanted Sauron gone, why did He not destroy Sauron Himself? He had no problem with wiping out most of the Numenoreans. Almost like he wanted to give Sauron a chance, but then he should not have intervened at all.

Its like comparing Eru to a gamer playing a Sandbox game. Pretty much leaving it follow its own history but sometimes altering a bit here and there to be amused by the changing outcomes.​


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## Alcuin (Dec 1, 2010)

Parsifal said:


> More like:
> 
> All that exists comes, in its beginning, from Eru,
> There is both Evil and Good in the world, always in balance/harmony with eachother,
> Therefore Eru too must be a mixture both Evil and Good. (Neutral?)


No, I disagree. 

You are, as I pointed out before, conflating [strike]Free Will[/strike] Foreknowledge with Predestination, and using the confusion that creates to propound the Problem of Evil. You must disentangle them to resolve the issue: if you continue to conflate them, you cannot come to a solution. 

_All that exists comes, in its beginning, from Eru_True​_There is both Evil and Good in the world, always in balance/harmony with eachother_Not a true statement. 

There is indeed both Good and Evil (I note that you have exchanged their natural order), but they are neither in balance nor in harmony. 

Evil by definition is not in harmony with anything, not even itself. It is ultimately self-destructive, as Tolkien points out in _Morgoth’s Ring_, “Myths Transformed”, in the essay “Notes on motives in the Silmarillion”:


> [noparse][[/noparse]Morgoth endeavoured[noparse]][/noparse] to break wills and subordinate them... This was sheer nihilism, and negation its one ultimate object: Morgoth would no doubt, if he had been victorious, have ultimately destroyed even his own “creatures” ... when they had served his ... purpose in using them... Melkor’s final impotence and despair lay in this: that whereas the Valar (and in their degree Elves and Men) could still love “Arda Marred”, that is Arda with a Melkor-ingredient, and could still heal this or that hurt, or produce from its very marring, from its state as it was, things beautiful and lovely, Melkor could do nothing with Arda, which was not from his own mind and was interwoven with the work and thoughts of others…


Nor is Evil in balance: Evil does not “balance” Good. Evil is the rejection of Good. Look at what Éowyn tells the Warden of the Houses of Healing when he complains that _the world is full enough of hurts and mischances without wars to multiply them._ (_Return of the King_, “The Steward and the King”)


> It needs but one foe to breed a war, not two


In other words, the innocent are set upon by the evil and must defend themselves or else die or be enslaved. There is no balance in the War of the Ring: Éowyn strips that argument.

Returning to “Notes on motives in the Silmarillion” for a moment, Tolkien says that


> Sauron had never reached this stage of nihilistic madness. He did not object to the existence of the world, so long as he could do what he liked with it. ... Sauron (unlike Morgoth) would have been content for the Númenóreans to exist, _as his own subjects_ and indeed he used a great many of them that he corrupted to his allegiance.


There’s no harmony or balance here, either. 

It is also the nature of Evil to contemn Good with its own Evil intent. There are many examples of this in _Lord of the Rings_, but two will suffice to make the point. 

In the parley with the Captains of the West before the Morannon (_RotK_, “Black Gate Opens”), the Mouth of Sauron says,


> Dwarf-coat, elf-cloak, blade of the downfallen West, and spy from the little rat-land of the Shire – … here are the marks of a conspiracy.


Surely it is Sauron who has conspired against the West, and ultimately against Eru! The response of the Free Peoples – the Company of the Ring, the Frodo’s Quest, Aragorn’s claim to the throne of Gondor, Rohan’s keeping its alliance oaths, and Gandalf’s long perseverance in conformity with Eru’s designs – were all responses to Evil promulgated by Sauron. But the Mouth of Sauron would have all believe that Sauron is rightful ruler.


In their confrontation in _TT_, “Voice of Saruman”, Saruman accuses Gandalf of what he himself desires:


> ”Will I come down?” [noparse][[/noparse]Saruman[noparse]][/noparse] mocked. “Does an unarmed man come down to speak with robbers out of doors? I can hear you well enough here. I am no fool, and I do not trust you, Gandalf. They do not stand openly on my stairs, but I know where the wild wood-demons are lurking, at your command.”
> 
> “The treacherous are ever distrustful,” answered Gandalf wearily. “But you need not fear for your skin. I do not wish to kill you, or hurt you, as you would know, if you really understood me. And I have the power to protect you. I am giving you a last chance. You can leave Orthanc, free ... free from bond, of chain or command: to go where you will, even, even to Mordor, Saruman, if you desire. But you will first surrender to me the Key of Orthanc, and your staff. They shall be pledges of your conduct, to be returned later, if you merit them.”
> 
> Saruman... laughed wildly. “Later! ... Yes, when you also have the Keys of Barad-dur itself, I suppose; and the crowns of seven kings. and the rods of the Five Wizards, and have purchased yourself a pair of boots many sizes larger than those that you wear now. A modest plan. Hardly one in which my help is needed!...”



*Evil seeks to corrupt and destroy Good. It seeks only its own will, it is not in balance, it **is **not in harmony, though it seeks to portray itself that way.*​_Therefore Eru too must be a mixture both Evil and Good. (Neutral?) _Simply untrue. 

Again I say, you have conflated [strike]Free Will[/strike] Foreknowledge with Predestination. Eru did not cause Melkor to rebel: Melkor misused his free will to _choose_ to rebel. To attribute Melkor’s rebellion _against_ Eru _to_ Eru is not only nonsense, it’s perverse. ​I readily agree with you that philosophers have argued as you posit for thousands of years. Aristophanes nailed Socrates in his own lifetime in The Clouds: sophists make the weaker argument appear the stronger.* 




Parsifal said:


> So why would Eru intervene to destroy the Numenoreans, and send back Gandals to destroy Sauron?
> 
> The Numenoreans would not have been able to alter their fate, for even on Valinor they would be mortal. (That being on Valinor itself would grant immortality, or that the Valar held back immortality from Men, was a lie by Sauron, obviously.) Thus his “Gift” to Men would have remained unaltered, and Valinor was just a creation of the Valar, why would he even care? Eru did not intervene when Melkor threw down the Lamps, or destroyed the Trees.
> 
> If He wanted Sauron gone, why did He not destroy Sauron Himself? He had no problem with wiping out most of the Numenoreans. Almost like he wanted to give Sauron a chance, but then he should not have intervened at all.


Gee, I don’t know. Elrond’s position, though, displays humility in this regard (_FotR_, “Council of Elrond”):


> Who of all the Wise could have foreseen it? Or, if they are wise, why should they expect to know it, until the hour has struck?


As for the Númenóreans in Aman, it is not true, according to Tolkien, that things would have worked out well. He says that they would have either become insane or mindless monsters. 

And if we read between the lines, Eru acted against Ar-Pharazôn and the Kings’ Men (the Black Númenóreans) because the Valar did not have authority to destroy the Children of Eru. Something had to be done, and the Valar could not do it.

You say that Eru was giving “Sauron a chance”. To do what? Repent? Unlikely. Maybe it was better, in Arda Marred, to allow the situation to run for while, altering the course of events, offsetting the excesses of Evil indirectly or directly. 

How interesting would _The Lord of the Rings_ be had matters transpired as you propose?


-|-


* A sophist was a teacher of philosophy and rhetoric in ancient Athens. Socrates and his students, such as Plato, denied that he was a sophist – but in fact, as Aristophanes pointed out in his aforementioned play, The Clouds, Socrates was indeed a sophist. It is the root of the word _sophisticated_. To be called _sophisticated_ is not complimentary: it means that you’ve accepted the weaker argument instead of the better one.


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## Parsifal (Dec 17, 2010)

Alcuin said:


> (I note that you have exchanged their natural order


 
My bad  It wasn't on purpose at least.



Alcuin said:


> _There is both Evil and Good in the world, always in balance/harmony with eachother_
> 
> Not a true statement.
> 
> There is indeed both Good and Evil (I note that you have exchanged their natural order), but they are neither in balance nor in harmony.


 
With Balance I do not mean they are at peace with eachother, on in a non-changing situation. Its more like the "Balance" of nature, which is actually just a logical consequence from any change.

For example, many people fallsly argue that if a certain species of animals will disappear, all "balance of nature" will be gone and all other species will sooner or later die out too.

In reality, wile other species may weaken, allowing a new species to take the place of the extinguished one, and creating a new ordering of things. THAT is the balancing of nature, meaning one single species can never completely "take over" and keep the world forever.

In regards to Good and Evil: There has always been Evil (atleast since the beginning of Ea) and there will always be Evil (at least untill the Last War and Downthrow of Morgoth), this is acknowledged by Tolkien multiple times. Though Fortune sometimes smiles on "Good", and sometimes on "Evil", they do keep eachother in Balance. For did not the downfall of Morgoth pave the road for the Rise of Sauron?



Alcuin said:


> Evil by definition is not in harmony with anything, not even itself. It is ultimately self-destructive, as Tolkien points out in _Morgoth’s Ring_, “Myths Transformed”, in the essay “Notes on motives in the Silmarillion”


 
But neither is good. How many that are Good get seduced by Evil, turn to Evil from a desire to do Good, or even out of disagreements with others on the course to take.

Also, I see Morgoth's ultimate goal of Destruction as his desire to be the only Power in the World, and leave nothing that did not come from Him. Thus making him, sort off, God. A God of destruction and not of Creation, but still.



Alcuin said:


> _Therefore Eru too must be a mixture both Evil and Good. (Neutral?)_
> 
> Simply untrue.
> 
> Again I say, you have conflated [strike]Free Will[/strike] Foreknowledge with Predestination. Eru did not cause Melkor to rebel: Melkor misused his free will to _choose_ to rebel. To attribute Melkor’s rebellion _against_ Eru _to_ Eru is not only nonsense, it’s perverse.


 
Very well, but then the question remains:

What will happen to Melkor and Sauron, and the Nazghul, and even the Orcs (if they have "souls") after the end of the world? Have they somehow lost their "soul" (as in "Immortality") by their Evil? Will they finally completely Repent and become "Good"? For Tolkien says that in the end all the Children will once again sing before Eru, and then completely understand their Role and the Roles of all others. So then atleast Evil (or those who were Evil) must be in Harmony with Eru and all other Children.



Alcuin said:


> And if we read between the lines, Eru acted against Ar-Pharazôn and the Kings’ Men (the Black Númenóreans) because the Valar did not have authority to destroy the Children of Eru. Something had to be done, and the Valar could not do it.


 
Yet the Valar intervened in the War of Wrath. Destroying Morgoth (atleast his Physical Form) and his servants, some of whom surely were Men.



Alcuin said:


> How interesting would _The Lord of the Rings_ be had matters transpired as you propose?


 
In my eyes: More.
For otherwise all those times Sauron was actually close to victory were not actually perilous. For example, when Gandalf strove with Sauron's Will when Frodo was on Amon Hen, it would not really have mattered had Gandalf failed, for Eru would have in some way intervened to prevent Sauron's victory anyway.

Also, if all Evil is destined to fail, and all Evil beings will eventually fall, why would Sauron and Melkor even bother to "rebel", and fight good?
Is the ultimate difference between Good and Evil then that "Good" knows the Will of Eru, and Evil is to proud to realise it, or something?

To go even further: Would Ea have been complete without Melkor's rebellion and Evil? Again I point to Rain/Clouds and Snow/Ice, the combined products of both Good (water) and Evil (heat and cold).

If there was absolutely no Evil, there would also be no Good. For what Good can be done in a perfect world? Also Good itself will create Evil. To put it in real live perspective: A society without problems will ultimately result in overpopulation, which leads to problems again.

Without Good, there would be nothing to inflict Evil upon, and anything new that came out of this world of Evil would actually be Good. For even a world of fire and ice is better than complete nothingness.


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