What does everyone think of this? I saw this somewhere.
"
Ilúvatar somehow, which we cannot conceive, caused the Void to arise. In any case, this depends on what we consider the Void, for this is a word used for different things that depend on which stage of the expansion of
Cosmology we are talking about.
In early mythology, Ilu (a word meaning all things) was a world limited to a sphere, which assumed the category of a universe, or even multiverse, as it contained stars, sun, moon, and cosmic water below and in the sides, and there were even higher layers above those of the celestial bodies.
However, measuredly speaking, this world was only bigger than our Earth. There wasn't then a truly vast cosmos,
Arda was set amid Avakúma the night without form or time, which appears to have been in fact a literal Nothingness. Beyond it were the Timeless
Halls where
Eru and many
Ainur who remained lived. It is uncertain whether Eru made the Void/Kúma, as the myths here are still embedded in pagan influence but Eru made the heavenly
regions and Ilu.
Later,
Tolkien created the concept of Eä, the Universe that is larger than Arda, which remains flat and now amid an immeasurable vastness, in general and in particular — Eä is not one space but a truly complex multidimensional cosmos with regions,
ages, vast halls and spaces, and wheeling fires with innumerable stars. However, even the whole of Eä is set amid the Void, which still appears to be a concept of non-existence and thus separate from it. Tolkien seems to have exchanged a small Ilu for a large Eä amid the same Outer Night. But here there is a complicated question, for the Void beyond Arda, reminiscent of the cosmology of Ilu, cannot be the Nothing because beyond Arda is Eä or space.
Void > Eä > Arda =/= Arda < Void
The explanation he found was that
Men and even
Elves confused the Void of Nothing beyond Eä with the space of Eä beyond Arda, and that the small cosmos of Ilu and even the larger cosmos of Eä regarding the structure of the Kingdom of Arda was a myth in-universe; that the stars, sun, and moon were all larger and older bodies and besides the earth that was always round. Arda, therefore, was the name of the solar system.
[Since the minds of Men (and even of the Elves) were inclined to confuse the 'Void', as a conception of the state of Not-being, outside Creation or Ea, with the conception of vast spaces within Ea, especially those conceived to lie all about the enisled 'Kingdom of Arda' (which we should probably call the Solar System).
The Void beyond Arda is the conception of vast spaces at astronomical distances, however it may also refer more specifically to the voids of Eä which were areas with very little matter, such as that vacuum beyond Arda which was thus an enisled (isolated)
realm compared to other
tales. From what little we know is that they're cold and dark
places, although there were
spirits (that
Melkor later corrupted) in them.
The voids and Void are created by Eru since they are just spaces of Eä, which Eru made. Did Eru make the Void of Not Being? This is more tricky, as the Void there implies that it does not exist, it is the absence of the Imperishable Flame that sustains the concept of existence itself. But the Outer Void there is still accessible in some way, Melkor has walked through it, so it exists in some fashion as the antithesis of existence. Hence, Eru must have created the Void not like he created the Ainur and the World, like we created ideas on a blank paper, the records, not the paper, are the things, yet we also made the paper itself.
Let us consider, however, that the idea of Eä amid the Void is middle stage of mythology, the later Cosmology, even more expanded, speaks not of One World but of a plurality of Worlds or planes of existence beyond the idea of time and space, which is characteristic of Eä in general.
Eru assumes here the supreme role of Author of a Great History that was divided into planes or individual histories of the total drama of which Eru was the author. Eä, although before said to be all that is, it is now but one history, the Timeless Halls and
Ainulindalë and the Void, all that outside world, another, though the First History and possibly the second lowest or Highest Plane, described in
The Silmarillion in the manner of the elements and
concepts of the visible World of Eä and Arda:
(If we consider the First History, which is called the Ainulindalë: this must have come from the
Aratar themselves (for the most part indeed from
Manwë, it is believed). Though it was plainly put into its present form by Eldar, and was already in that form when it was recorded by Rumil, it must nonetheless have been from the first presented to us not only in the words of
Quenya, but also according to our modes of thought and our imagination of the visible world, in symbols that were intelligible to us.)
Myths Transformed talks of the Great Tale or Great History being another and greater thing than Eä:
(Some say that it was out of Earth (16) itself that Ithil [Moon] was made, and thus Ambar (17) was diminished; others say that the Moon was made of like things to the Earth and of that which is Eä itself as it was made in the Tale. (18))
In short: The Void and the Timeless Halls would be elements of a history of all existence, Eru remained beyond the Tale as a whole like an author remains beyond his story and made it. So, even the Being that the Ainur saw in that reality, however unknowable it was, was only one aspect of
the One inside the Tale
