At the beginning of The Silmarillion (1977) there is the creation story Ainulindale - which describes, in musical terms, how the universe is created; starting from Eru, The One, prime creator God.
JRR Tolkien regarded this myth as broadly compatible with his orthodox Roman Catholic Christianity - such that Eru has the attributes traditionally ascribed to the God of Catholic theology - being wholly-perfect in goodness; and one who creates everything from nothing; is omnipotent, omniscient etc.
The first thing Eru does is to create the Ainur; the senior angels or "gods" who later become the Valar (the senior angels) and the Maia (the subordinate angels).
It seems that the creation of the Ainur involves Eru dividing his "elemental" attributes and distributing them among the angelic beings; so that Vala suuch as Melkor has a link to fire (including spiritual fire), Manwe the airs, Ulmo all the waters etc.
More junior Maia have more specific powers and responsibilities - so that Osse represents just the coastal waters of Middle Earth.
Thus far, we can envisage the Ainur as being subdivisions of some of Eru's all-including characteristics, and with made-into a divine being that each has "agency": autonomy and freedom.
It is from the interactions of these separated Ainur that the actual universe is made; the process being described as a great music, a developing harmony; with each of the Ainur as-if an instrument/ composer with a distinctive tone and disposition.
These combine to make a great "improvised" symphony - which is creation.
The problem is Melkor - who later becomes called Morgoth; who is represented as the source of dissonance in the harmony of the great music; and thereby - when that music is revealed to be creation - the source of evil and the confusion and corruption of other beings: including Ainur, and the lower orders of beings such as dwarves, elves and Men.
More exactly, the problem is:
Considering that Eru is perfectly good, and all-that-is comes-from Eru - where does the evil in Melkor's nature originate?
If Eru is perfectly good, then there can apparently be no evil from-which Melkor could derive it.
The question of Melkor's agency is secondary, in that Melkor would neither have evil motivations (such as pride) nor would he make make evil choices (such as introducing discords) unless his nature was already evil.
For Melkor to become evil; Melkor would have to contain evil in the first place...
And yet we are told that Melkor comes only and entirely from Eru.
The only way I can make a sort-of sense from this is to assume that when Eru's perfectly-good nature is sub-divided to make the Ainur, then this process creates an imbalance or lop-sidenness due to the incompletion of each of the Ainur.
It is this incompletions and imbalance of nature which results in the evil of Melkor.
If this is true; it would mean that evil is a matter of imbalance - and that anything less complete that the everything-fullness of Eru is therefore evil - to some extent.
However, I don't think that this does much more than kick the can, if Eru's nature is said to be omnipotent and omniscient; because that would imply that the evil nature due to the particular incomplete imbalance of Melkor was foreknown to Eru.
Yet Eru chose to make Melkor the most powerful of the Ainur...
So that all the evil of the world, past present and future, was implicit from the start, in the way that Eru chose to create.
The consequence is that the perfect goodness of Eru somehow contains all the actual evil of creation - past, present and future. Yet Eru (if compatible with the Roman Catholic understanding of God) must be one and indivisible - Eru must have no internal structure.
(...Except in the mystical word spell of Trinitarianism, whereby the indivisible unity of God simultaneously and without contradiction is stated to contain the three persons of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. But that paradoxical mystery is not an explanation.)
An "imbalance" theory of evil is quite common, indeed it is almost mainstream.
One ancient manifestation of this theory was the Ancient Greek proverb of "moderation in all things" - a more recent manifestation is Jung's idea that individual's need to know and embrace their shadow self and its impulses, in order to attain the highest individuation.
Another version of the idea is that the ideal situation is a balance between Law and Chaos: too much of either is evil, and the best is some kind of middle path that includes a bit of both.
However, such ideas are not Christian; which faith is based on conceptualization of positive goodness - the more the better; and that (while God can make the best of the inevitable evils of this mortal life) - the ideal situation (Heaven) is one where there is only good, and no evil.
Indeed, while there is always some good in any overall-evil being, even Melkor; since to exist as a being is to be part of divine creation.
Good is therefore mixed-into evil in all actual beings - even when a being is eternally committed to opposing God and divine creation...
But Christianity insists that there can and should be pure good, not some balanced mixture of good with evil; and good is what Christians aspire to.
Therefore, I do not think the imbalance theory of evil can be used to explain the nature of Melkor; nor would it (I suspect) have been acceptable to JRRT.
Given Tolkien's assumptions; the situation regarding the creation of Melkor is incoherent: it does not make sense.
"Something has to give" among the assumptions that lead to this incoherence.
Given that Christians cannot (or perhaps should not) give-up on the pure-goodness of God; what must therefore give way is the idea that God created everything (including Melkor) from nothing - which means from-Himself-only.
If instead we assumed that Melkor was eternally existent as a being; that existence preceding Eru's creation; then the evil of Melkor's nature need not have been created by Eru.
We can assume that the roots of Melkor's evil nature and choices were always there - they were not aspects of Eru.
Then the perfect goodness of Eru can be asserted and explained simply and coherently.
12 comments:
I do not see that it is anymore rational or explanatory to suppose that Melkor either sprang from nothing independently of an act of God (which is a non-explanation) or was eternally self-existent himself (which implied eternal dualism is not as philosophically simple as a single original thing, i.e. God, and in any case would be incompatible with Tolkien’s Catholicism). At any rate, it is the same exact problem as the origin of Satan’s evil in Christianity. Supposing that God gave Melkor, like us, a free will — mysterious in its operation, granted — that can be either for or against God it does not involve any extra mystery to say that Melkor was one of the few who choose “against” rather than “for.” Asking “But what caused that choice rather than the opposite?” is only to suppose that free will doesn’t actually exist, the choice (and therefore its consequences) being therefore in the end attributable to the cause of the choice and therefore ultimately to God (or to an independent source, that is cause, of evil in the dualistic conception). Is it more rational or explanatory to suppose the existence of an independent, original evil than that free will exists, that God allows (but does not cause) beings to choose to hate him? I don’t see any reason why. And we mustn’t forget that of the two it is free will that is required for love to exist.
@GG - Of course it's the same problem as with the Christian God - But to get any benefit from this exercise, you would need to think things through from first principles, rather than slotting the problem back into the familiar (non-) explanations.
How is supposing originless evil more explanatory — or first principles-based — than free will? Dualism is hardly a new, or unfamiliar, idea.
@GG - The problem is that there is no "free will" if everything that is, has been purposively created from nothing by God.
When everything is derived from God, there is no other place for free will to come from.
When everything is derived from God - then *everything* derives from God.
Don't seek an answer externally. If you want to understand, you need to stop arguing and think it through For Yourself.
Might it be that evil comes at the interfaces between domains. Thus the coastal waters angel has to work with the coastal winds angel. And the imbalance reflects their effectiveness in creating well with each other and all the other interfacing angels and beings and so forth, that the greater whole of which they represent parts, flourishes; creates.
That capacity takes learning and wisdom amongst angels (and humans and all beings). Without which both suboptimal outcomes and disruption at the interfaces between areas of responsibility will arise. ie Evil and Sin.
I am reminded of a management team comprised of the managers of each of the business departments. The success effectiveness and easefullness of the team will directly reflect the members capacities to communicate and cooperate, co-create at the boundaries of their responsibilities. The HR Manager with the Operations Manager and so forth. And to do so requires some understanding of the other’s area and their priorities. And failure to do so leads to poorer outcomes for the organisation as a whole, and potentially disturbance and upset amongst the participants. And sin and evil. Maybe these arise at the boundaries between aspects of Eru. In the midst of different Ainur coming together with different interests and learning to cooperate well. And failing along the way.
@Colin - I would regard that as a variant of the "imbalance" argument I described above - and having the same (to Christians) unacceptable implications, if the logic is followed-through.
“The problem is Melkor - who later becomes called Morgoth; who is represented as the source of dissonance in the harmony of the great music”
Yes I agree. But with a slight twist that, that rather than the dissonance, the imbalance that comes from Melkor a particular being, it comes from the learning process, the growing process of free creative beings learning how to work stuff out together - amidst big angels as for little humans. It is merely the grist through which the necessary learning may come, not some fault in the system or somehow evil snuck in somewhere.
@Colin - That is the argument I am trying to refute - maybe you didn't understand my point, or maybe you disagree with it - this isn't clear.
I am thinking it is a feature of co-creating beings. You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs as they say. When beings come together whether they be an angel of coastal waters of middle earth and other angels or amongst humans, the process of co creation requires much that is new; uncharted territories. Unfamiliar situations where new decisions and actions are required. New skills and understanding. Which offer opportunities for learning and deepening. And mistakes and sins. Thus do we, and all other beings become more. Through endeavouring to create in new and unfamiliar circumstances with other beings. Face new challenges. And sin and repentance is an inevitable consequence of the free will to choose and learn. To love deeper.
@Colin - Errr... The omelette phrase (whoever invented it) was invented by/ attributed to people (Chamberlain? Lenin?) who were trying to justify genocidal activities!
It amounts to "the end justifies the means" - which is not a Christian idea.
That aside - I think you are abstracting evil to the point of airbrushing it into being little more than a momentary inconvenience.
Also: Free will is not a cause of evil.
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2025/07/free-will-is-not-cause-of-evil.html
Where I think Tolkien would take immediate exception — certainly as a Catholic, and I think demonstrably as the subcreator of Ëa and Arda — is the notion implicit in the title of this post and in your formulation of the problem, that evil is a thing, a substance, a being. Well, ‘tisn’t. Evil is a (significant) lack, a flaw, a harm, a marring, in the perfection — according to its (metaphysical) form and nature — of a created thing. Melkor’s evil lies neither in his created nature (which is itself good) nor in the mere fact of his endowment with free will, but rather in his misuse of that will towards selfish — envious, prideful — and (eventually) physically harmful ends. It “arose” in Melkor in precisely the same way it arose in Man: the misuse — the flawed, dis-ordered use — by a good (by nature) creature of the good (by nature) gift of free will.
It seems that your argument necessarily entails that free will, since it (necessarily) includes the _possibility_ of being misused, by choosing against God and the divine will,* is itself inherently — by nature — evil. But that’s like saying that hammers are inherently evil because they can be used to bludgeon people. Neither Tolkien the Catholic, certainly, nor, I think, Tolkien the subcreator, would agree that either hammers or free will are inherently evil simply because they _can_ be misused.
* Despite your post "Free will is Not the cause of evil”, where I would note that your appeal to Jesus’ example as showing that "free will is not even _potentially_ a cause of evil” fails to account for the fact — at least according to Catholic teaching — that Jesus, being fully God and fully Man, had _two_ wills, a human will and a (really, _the_) divine will, which of course was not the case for our first parents or us (or Melkor). It is true that Jesus’ human will always submitted itself to and acted in harmony with his divine will — but it is also true that his human will was itself distinct from his divine will and could and did experience fear (Gethsemane) and, just like our first parents, temptation.
@Carl - I'm afraid you have misunderstood my personal beliefs, hence my argument, pretty fundamentally!
For example, I believe that evil is: taking the side who are against God and divine creation, in the spiritual war of this world.
But also, I am not here presenting Tolkien's view on this matter, but critiquing it - I am saying it isn't coherent; neither is RC theology coherent on this matter.
By my understanding; free will/ agency is improperly conceptualized by RC theology (and Eastern Catholic Theology, and Protestant theology) in an ultimate sense; because the metaphysical assumptions of an omni-potent/ -scient God creating everything from nothing *leaves no space* for genuine freedom of men (or of angles, or of Jesus Christ).
If everything that is originates from God - then 1. there can be no real freedom because everything comes from God; and 2. all evil comes from God (whether directly or indirectly), because everything comes from God.
Since we are required to choose salvation, Men must be free, therefore everything does Not originate from God; and since the God of Jesus Christ is completely Good, then evil cannot originate from God, therefore *everything* does Not originate from God.
These arguments are simple but compelling, the explanations that purport to refute them are complex, abstract, and ultimately incoherent - no matter upon what authority they present themselves.
These and other matters of the metaphysics of Christianity have been the topic of my work for the past dozen or so years in hundreds of posts - rooted in what I believe is a coherent metaphysics that can simply explain both free will and the reality of evil.
A different metaphysics of Christianity is necessary because mainstream, orthodox, traditional Christian theology has been incoherent on these matters since (apparently) sometimes shortly after the ascension of Jesus.
But the simple clear truth of it is in the Fourth Gospel, if read with serious engagement - https://lazaruswrites.blogspot.com/.
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