Jag minns att läsa någonting i Tolkiens skrifter som helt sammanfattade hans svar på det onde problemet (i alla fall i hans föreställda värld): Om Gud (eller Eru) är helt bra, varför tillåter han det onda (Melkor) att existera i hans skapelse?
Tolkiens svar var att parafrasera (självklart, om jag kunde citera honom direkt, skulle jag inte fråga), att existensen av lidande gör världens historia mer gripande och vacker än vad den annars skulle ha varit.
Vad är det här citatet, och var verkar det? Det har stör mig i åratal, och jag har refererat det ett par gånger i svaren utan att kunna komma ihåg vad de exakta orden var ( eller var att hitta dem).
Observera att jag letar efter ett specifikt citat, vilket (förhoppningsvis) jag vet när jag ser det. Alla citat från Tolkien som adresserar Theodicy i Middle-earth är välkomna, men jag ger bara ticken till den jag letar efter.
För att spara lite tid, här är några jag är övertygade om är inte den jag vill ha:
And it seemed at last that there were two musics progressing at one time before the seat of Ilúvatar, and they were utterly at variance. The one was deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came. The other had now achieved a unity of its own; but it was loud, and vain, and endlessly repeated; and it had little harmony, but rather a clamorous unison as of many trumpets braying upon a few notes. And it essayed to drown the other music by the violence of its voice, but it seemed that its most triumphant notes were taken by the other and woven into its own solemn pattern.
The Silmarillion I Ainulindalë
Then Ilúvatar spoke, and he said: 'Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them is Melkor; but that he 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. And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.'
The Silmarillion I Ainulindalë
I Brev av J.R.R. Tolkien , uttrycker Tolkien i flera fall att för världen av Ringenes Herre och The Hobbit tror han inte på "absolutes" av antingen ond eller bra.
Speciellt tror han inte på absolut ondska (brev 183 till W.H. Auden):
In my story I do not deal in Absolute Evil. I do not think there is such a thing, since that is Zero. I do not think that at any rate any 'rational being' is wholly evil. Satan fell. In my myth Morgoth fell before Creation of the physical world. In my story Sauron represents as near an approach to the wholly evil will as is possible. He had gone the way of all tyrants: beginning well, at least on the level that while desiring to order all things according to his own wisdom he still at first considered the (economic) well-being of other inhabitants of the Earth. But he went further than human tyrants in pride and the lust for domination, being in origin an immortal (angelic) spirit.
och han tror inte på absolut gott, antingen (brev 154 till Naomi Mitchison):
Some reviewers have called the whole thing simple-minded, just a plain fight between Good and Evil, with all the good just good, and the bad just bad.
...
[Besides], in this 'mythology' all the 'angelic' powers concerned with this world were capable of many degrees of error and failing, between the absolute Satanic rebellion and evil of Morgoth and his satellite Sauron, and the fainéance of some of the other higher powers or 'gods'. The 'wizards' were not exempt. Indeed, being incarnate, they were more likely to stray, or err. Gandalf alone fully passes the tests, on a moral plane anyway (he makes mistakes of judgement). Since in the view of this tale and mythology, Power, when it dominates or seeks to dominate other wills and minds (except by the assent of their reason) is evil, these 'wizards' were incarnated in the life-forms of Middle-earth, and so suffered the pains both of mind and body.
När det gäller "varför" pekar han på detta till C.S. Lewis (även dokumenterat i samma bok som bokstaven 113) där han uttrycker sin egen personliga åsikt om vad det innebär att drabbas av:
It is one of the mysteries of pain that it is, for the sufferer, an opportunity for good, a path of ascent however hard. But it remains an ‘evil’, and it must dismay any conscience to have caused it carelessly, or in excess, let alone wilfully.
Kan det vara den här?
But at that last word of Fëanor: that at the least the Noldor should do deeds to live in song for ever, he raised his head, as one that hears a voice far off, and he said: ‘So shall it be! Dear-bought those songs shall be accounted, and yet shall be well-bought. For the price could be no other. Thus even as Eru spoke to us shall beauty not before conceived be brought into Eä, and evil yet be good to have been.’
But Mandos said: 'And yet remain evil. To me shall Fëanor come soon.’
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion, "Of the Sun and Moon and the Hiding of Valinor"
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