Is Melkor's evilness a reflection of Iluvatar's true nature?

Light or No Light, that is the question...

Light or No Light, that is the question...

Light - technically or scientifically speaking - is nothing else but an electromagnetic radiation of a certain frequency (with some discussion about the wave/particle dualism of its nature) .

Visible light occupies but a very small frequency spectrum (wavelength: ~ 380 - 780 nm) out of this broad range of electromagnetic radiation which goes from the highly energetic gamma waves (wavelength: ~3x10-16m) to the low energy radio-waves (wavelength: ~ 3 km) with many other ranges in between which serve several purposes for us modern humans (TV, microwave, radio, radar, etc., etc.).

This electromagnetic radiation is always there in our universe as it is emitted by many sources (stellar bodies), and thus "light" exists independently of whether it is "perceived" or not. But what does the trick for us seeing species, is that the small range of frequency we can "see" is the very range which is only to a small degree absorbed by water and thus evolution has developed a sensorium for this frequency range which has helped early species to survive in the surface regions of water.

Since what we call light is only a very very small and - seemingly - very arbitrarily chosen range of electromagnetic radiation the conclusion is near, that "light" for us humans is also a philosophical concept. Would we not be able to perceive it with our sensorium or use it some other way (like microwave, TV), it would - just like many other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum have no significance for us and never got specifically "named". The concept of "light" and "darkness" as a pair of dependent opposites - just like "good" and "evil" - would have never arisen (aside from the question whether we as humans would exist had the early species not developed a sensorium to perceive light).

Consequently we could say "Without sight there would be no light and dark" even though the radiation that now represents light for us would still exist independently.

But Tolkien has now, it seems, ascribed a certain spiritual quality to "light" and thus made the connection between light=good and dark=evil (but of course he was neither the first nor the only one who did this). Verlyn Flieger, in her book Splintered Light pays a lot of attention to this connection and argues that light in Tolkiens mythology ever diminishes and splinters as time goes on and that this diminishing and splintering is somehow parallelled by the development of language and the spiritual development of the Children of Ilúvatar, mostly in the firstborn...

Come Sweet Death...

Come Sweet Death...

Death was not always seen as a "problem"...

Early "societies" of hunters and gatherers most probably saw death not as a problem, because it was something absolutely normal. It was simply unavoidable. Nature demonstrates this – in the process of eating and being eaten – very well and it appears, that these early cultures did not give much further thought to it (according to the examples provided by Frazer and Campbell through surviving myths and rituals in existing "primitive societies").

Later, in the early agricultural societies, death also was seen as natural, though in a very different sense. Initiated by the observation of periodic recurrences (sun, moon, seasons, certain stellar movements) almost everything in the world was seen as an endless cyclical movement. Nature, for example, was seen as "dieing" each year in winter, but being re-born next spring. The grain of corn that falls to the ground dies, but next spring a new ear of corn springs from the grain – it is re-born. And, according to these observations, myths – or religions – were formed, in which this continuous cycle of death and re-birth was the central theme of early "barbarian" or "pagan" cultures in Europe (cf. Old-European culture as preceding the later imported Indo-European culture) as well as of some eastern cultures (up to today).

Even myths and rites of this period - at times appearing exceptionally cruel to us modern humans - occasionally survived and Joseph Campbell, for example, mentions a grave inscription that says that "death was not an evil, but a blessing" (cf. The Masks of God, Vol I, p186), which immediately reminded me of Tolkien's statement in the Silmarillion as quoted by Gothmog.

Ruinel said:

Good AND Evil are neither perfect nor imperfect. They are references to each other. One can not exist without the other. All beings are capable of both Good and Evil... it is how we govern ourselves which determines where we are on the scale of Good and Evil.

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I think that Tolkien would vehemently disagree with these statements. Iluvatar is all good, and as a result of free-will there is the possibility of evil. But good is objective and is not dependent on evil. Evil is the absense of good. I'm confident that Tolkien would believe this based on his very Catholic beliefs.

Perhaps Tolkien would indeed disagree with the statements so far as the "Real World" is concerned. However, within his stories it is also possible that he would not. I find it interesting that Tolkien seems to have left Iluvatar completely outside the question of 'Good' and 'Evil' by having within Arda an embodyment of both good and evil. Melkor is of course the full embodyment of 'Evil' and on the other side we find not Iluvatar but Manwe.

What we must not forget with these stories is that Tolkien did not write an allogory of the Christian faith but in his own words

On the side of mere narrative device, this is, of course, meant to provide beings of the same order of beauty, power, and majesty as the 'gods' of higher mythology, which can yet be accepted – well, shall we say baldly, by a mind that believes in the Blessed Trinity.

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from The Letters of JRR Tolkien 131.

Gothmog said:

So in Tolkien's works, not only was Death created (not as a "Being" but as a fact of the nature of the Atani) but we also see where and when it was done.

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Maybe in a way, though, the argument is not void...

"Now none of us know, though the Valar may know, the future of Arda, or how long it is ordained to endure. But it will not endure for ever. It was made by Eru, but He is not in it. The One only has no limits. Arda, and Ea itself, must therefore be bounded."

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So the Gift of the Atani could be interpretted instead as an escape from the true Death that the Eldar seem to be facing. And this could go back to support that since theoretically nothing existed in the beginning, and that, just as theoretically, nothing would exist at the end, save Eru, then a Death that is nothingness did exist instead of being created.

But I'm straying off-topic.

JPMaximilian said:

I think that Tolkien would vehemently disagree with these statements. Iluvatar is all good, and as a result of free-will there is the possibility of evil. But good is objective and is not dependent on evil. Evil is the absense of good. I'm confident that Tolkien would believe this based on his very Catholic beliefs.

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I'm not sure if I agree with this. It makes sense, but to my mind at least, if evil were simply the absense of good, then evil could only lead to more evil. And that does not always seem to be the case.

Gothmog said:

Perhaps Tolkien would indeed disagree with the statements so far as the "Real World" is concerned. However, within his stories it is also possible that he would not.

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That's a good point. I maintain that even without a Trinitarian God, Iluvatar would still need to be all good. I have no facts from my Tolkien readings to back that up, so perhaps I'll look over the Silmarillion again and see what I find.

Originally Posted by Elemmire
So the Gift of the Atani could be interpretted instead as an escape from the true Death that the Eldar seem to be facing. And this could go back to support that since theoretically nothing existed in the beginning, and that, just as theoretically, nothing would exist at the end, save Eru, then a Death that is nothingness did exist instead of being created.

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However, Death is not the absence of life but the 'End' of it. So before there was life there could not be death. So even by your view death must have been created no sooner than the same time as life.

Originally Posted by JPMaximilian
That's a good point. I maintain that even without a Trinitarian God, Iluvatar would still need to be all good. I have no facts from my Tolkien readings to back that up, so perhaps I'll look over the Silmarillion again and see what I find.

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Why would Iluvatar Need to be All good. All that is in fact needed is that (from our point of view) Iluvatar is Predominantly good.

He wouldn't need to be even partially evil, he gave his creations free will, which allows them to choose evil. That doesn't mean that Iluvatar has to be partially evil in order for this to take place.

JPMaximilian said:

He wouldn't need to be even partially evil, he gave his creations free will, which allows them to choose evil. That doesn't mean that Iluvatar has to be partially evil in order for this to take place.

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I never said that Iluvatar needed to be partially evil, my statement was that

All that is in fact needed is that (from our point of view) Iluvatar is Predominantly good.

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The problem is the use of such terms as "Has to be" and "Need to be". These terms set limits on what Iluvatar Could be.
After the point of Iluvatar being predominantly good (from our point of view) need vanishes. So the question of Iluvatar being "All" good or not is a matter of opinion. My view of it is that Iluvatar being the creator of Arda is in fact totally outside of any diffinition of good or evil made by lesser beings. So the question in my opinion does not apply in those terms.

If Iluvatar is 'All' then Iluvatar must be both good and evil, one cannot exist without the other. Iluvatar cannot be predominantly either as Iluvatar is capable of creating both. Anything that we define we define against something else; we define Iluvatar (or any Supreme Being) against nothingness because they are 'All', which means that they constitute both negative and postitive aspects, after all, such concepts are human inventions. Good and evil only exist in our minds, they do not exist in nature. A storm that kills hundreds cannot be labelled 'evil', a human who kills hundreds can; the end result for both is the same, yet we only ascribe the word 'evil' to one of them.

Why do you think that Iluvatar is an 'All'. Why do you think evil cannot evil without good and vice versa. I would say that a storm that kills people would be a "natural evil". The storm itself isn't evil in that it doesn't have a will that decided to kill, but what happened to the people is an evil.

scotsboyuk said:

If Iluvatar is 'All' then Iluvatar must be both good and evil, one cannot exist without the other. Iluvatar cannot be predominantly either as Iluvatar is capable of creating both. Anything that we define we define against something else; we define Iluvatar (or any Supreme Being) against nothingness because they are 'All', which means that they constitute both negative and postitive aspects, after all, such concepts are human inventions. Good and evil only exist in our minds, they do not exist in nature. A storm that kills hundreds cannot be labelled 'evil', a human who kills hundreds can; the end result for both is the same, yet we only ascribe the word 'evil' to one of them.

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And by this very argument I say that Iluvatar is Outside such concepts. This is why I say that he would be "From Our point of View" predominantly good. What he was in truth would be unknowable to lesser beings.

Gothmog said:

Why would Iluvatar Need to be All good. All that is in fact needed is that (from our point of view) Iluvatar is Predominantly good.

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If Iluvatar is a perfect being, which is a claim I'm not sure is supported by the books, then Goodness being a perfection, would mean that Iluvatar is all Good. By giving his creations free-will, there is an option to do evil, but that doesn't mean that Iluvatar created evil.

@JPMaximilian

How can you define 'evil' without defining 'good'? For someone to do something that is 'good' there must be a measure of what constitutes 'good' i.e. that which is not evil.

Deaths due to a storm can be described as being 'evil', but that would be a false description. The fact that the storm ha sno mind is irrelevent, the end result is what we are examining. The storm's 'actions' are described in human terms, a chimpanzee would not consider it 'evil' if one of his fellow chimpanzees were killed by a storm. Human beings use terms such as 'good' and 'evil' to build constructs for ourselves, they are not natural terms, they do not exist in nature.

Can the Big Bang be described as 'evil'? If the Big Bang gave birth to the universe then it also brought into existence Nazis, without the Big Bnag they would never have existed, so can the Big Bnag be classified as 'evil'? Alternatively can it be termed 'good' because it resulte din the Buddha coming to Earth?

What about changing attitudes over time? Was every Roman who watched gladitorial games evil? Was every caveman who killed a rival evil?

@Gothmog

Indeed, when talking about Supreme Beings, we, by definition, can only assign to them our limited knowledge and understanding. By our own definitions of such beings we can never fully comprehend them.

Is Goodness a perfection? By some belief systems it is viewed that when something totaly one sided it becomes its opposite.

scotsboyuk
This is true but we will no doubt continue to have many discussions about it.

JPMaximilian said:

If Iluvatar is a perfect being, which is a claim I'm not sure is supported by the books, then Goodness being a perfection, would mean that Iluvatar is all Good. By giving his creations free-will, there is an option to do evil, but that doesn't mean that Iluvatar created evil.

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Who says 'goodness' is perfection? To those who are evil it is not, therefore Iluvatur would not be perfect in their eyes.

By giving those Iluvatur created free will they also had the option of doing good, so Iluvatur cannot be said to have created 'good' either, hence neither resulted from Iluvatur, which would indicate that Iluvatur is not in fact 'All' and that there are things outside of Iluvatur. Yet if there was nothing before Iluvatur then this would seem to be a paradox as nothing could exist that was not of Iluvatur.

Gothmog said:

Is Goodness a perfection? By some belief systems it is viewed that when something totaly one sided it becomes its opposite.

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That makes no sense to me, perhaps you could elaborate. It seems intuitive to me that Goodness is a perfection.

As to evil. Goodness does not have to be in relationship of anything. I don't think Good or Evil is determined by "cavemen" or Romans. I think that Good and Evil, or right and wrong are objective regardless of culture or time.

@JPMaximilian

I think you are missing my point old boy. Good and evil are human concepts, which do change over time and with different cultures. Would you consider it evil to burn four hundred people alive in a field because they had different religious beliefs to you? The crusaders who attacked and sacked Beziers in France during the Albigensian Crusade thought it was the right thing to do.

We consider Nazi Germany to have been evil, yet to millions of Germans at the time anti-semitism was a good thing. We consider the use of poison gas evil, yet the Western powers thought it perfectly acceptable to use against each other during WWI.

You consider goodness to be perfection, but that raises two very important points. As Gothmog said above, some people do not consider any extreme, good or bad to be perfection, rather they prefer balance, seeing that for good to exist evil must also exist. That brings me onto my second point, if you believe that goodness is perfection then you also require evil to define that goodness, one cannot have perfection without also having an idea of imperfection.

Sorry for the double post.

scotsboyuk said:

Who says 'goodness' is perfection? To those who are evil it is not, therefore Iluvatur would not be perfect in their eyes.

so Iluvatur cannot be said to have created 'good' either, hence neither resulted from Iluvatur, which would indicate that Iluvatur is not in fact 'All'

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I don't think Iluvatar created good per se. Iluvatar is Good, and he can transfer that goodness to another. Things like existence and motion and free-will would be good things.

Iluvatar does not need to create evil in order for there to be evil. I would say that evil is not a thing, but an absence of a thing. For example, war would be the absence of peace.

If Iluvatar created the choices of the creations made by Iluvatar, if you say when Saruman turned to evil Iluvatar created that evil, then you are denying free will.

JPMaximilian said:

That makes no sense to me, perhaps you could elaborate. It seems intuitive to me that Goodness is a perfection.

As to evil. Goodness does not have to be in relationship of anything. I don't think Good or Evil is determined by "cavemen" or Romans. I think that Good and Evil, or right and wrong are objective regardless of culture or time.

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Very well. Let us look at a couple of examples.

The Sun is Good. After all, no Sun, no life on earth. However, too much sun and we live in a desert.

Rain is also Good. No rain, no plants and we have a desert. However, too much rain and we drown.

Each is good but when there is too much of either they become their opposite. And before saying that these are extreme examples, They are so to illustrate the point of something taken to the extreme becoming its opposite. Such as the claim of "All Good".