JRRT: Predestinarian?

[Solly]

Then Ilúvatar spoke, and he said: "Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them is Melkor; but that ye may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Ilúvatar, those things that ye have sung, I will show them forth, that ye may see what ye have done...Behold your music!" And he showed to them a vision giving them sight where before was only hearing; and they saw a new World made visible before them...and they looked and wondered as this World began to unfold its history, and it seemed to them that it lived and grew.
...
But even as Ulmo spoke, and while the Ainur were yet gazing upon this vision, it was taken away and hidden from their sight
...
Ilúvatar called to them, and said: " I know the deisre of your minds that what ye have seen should verily be, not only in your thought, but even as ye yourselves are, and yet other. Therefore I say: Eä! Let these things be."
...
But when the Valar entered into Eä they were at first astounded and at a loss, for it was as if naught was yet made which they had seen in vision, and all was but on the point to begin and yet unshaped, and it was dark. For the Great Music had been but the growth and flowering of thought in the Timeless Halls, and the Vision only a foreshadowing of thought; but now they had entered in at the beginning of Time, and the Valar perceived that the World had been but foreshadowed and foresung, and they must achieve it.

Excerpted from The Ainulindalë, in The Silmarillion, by JRRT.

Question: JRRT writes of a Great Music sung and visioned forth, involving the history of Middle Earth. Then that World is created, that the song might be lived out. Is this a predestinarian Divine Drama?

[Patroclus]

I think it is. Remember also that Iluvitar tells the Valar that all is from Iluvitar. However, I wonder if it is a complete predestiny. If the valar had seen all the horrors of histroy, what would have been their reactions?

[Entropic Gnosis]

I was never sure if it was totaly predestined or rather more like the composition of some great underlying principle. Certain things will exist as per the music, and discord is now a part of that, so strife will happen, but the open question is, at least from my musician's standpoint, "if all the of the living things in middle earth are part of the music then they have a hand in how it is played. The same piece of music played by different people has individual varriation. So of there is a measure of free will in the playing of music, then why not some in the music of the Ainur?" Certanly there is a strong sense of fate in this but i am not so sure it is compleatly without the freedom of the will.

I recall that when Aule made the dwarves this was not part of the original music per se but rather something of his own desire and Illuvatar granted them life because of the reason for their creation.

Then we have the orc's and all of Morgoth's corrupted servants which could be seen as something akin to varriations on a theme.

[Solly]

I think some of your points would be covered by the fact that Ilúvatar has unrevealed themes that would work out. His "secret will" if you like. Yet, there is no indication that the song is still being sung, but that it is rather being played out.


Yet some things there are that they cannot see, neither alone nor taking counsel together; for to none but himself Ilúvatar revealed all that he has in store, and in every age there come forth things that are new and have no foreboding, for they do not proceed from the past.

Our knowledge is limited, even among the Ainur. But not to Ilúvatar who had already laid his plans. Equally, the end and goal of the song was not revealed (partly since JRRT was writing about something that happened before Christian revelation took place), yet no indication that these things were new to Ilúvatar as such.

Manwë "recalls" the song, and sees things in it he did not notice before. he doesn't continue singing it.

On the other hand, the account of the creation of the dwarves is ambiguous enough to make it appear that a new thing had happened, and Ilúvatar was using it.

I wonder if athiests have trouble with the fact that Melkor's actions were folded into the drama by Ilúvatar himself. Does this make the whole Middle Earth thing unacceptable to them?