Glad to have you!

: I have some inter-related queries relating to the Professor's conception or use of "fate" in his writings. As an initial matter, I am neither a student of philosophy nor a believer in pre-determination. Nonetheless, I find the Professor's references to fate to be ambiguous.

: Eru gives the Atani a "new gift" so that "they should have a virtue to shape their life, amid the powers and chances of the world, beyond the Music of the Ainur, which is as fate to all things else."

: My questions are : (1) are the Valar also constrained by fate?
: In favor of this interpretation appear to be the express statement "to all things else" in the quote above, as well as the Dooms of Mandos which almost invariably involve the Valar.

: (2)If the Valar are constrained by fate, then why is Arda considered "marred"?

: (3) Doesn't the injection of the Free Will of the Atani disrupt or eliminate Fate? (I don't expect a canonical answer to this one but am interested in the views of others)

Ah! Free Will vs. Fate. I can't say what I think Tolkien believed about his Arda because what I believe I almost certainly project onto the authors I like (and at the same time, those authors also alter my beliefs). To transfer the discussion to us, I firmly believe that we DO have free will. At the same time I just as firmly believe that the whole history of man was set from the beginning and all the choices we have yet to make God knew before he created everything. It seems a contradiction. If the future is already determined, then how can we have free will? I'm not sure I can explain it adequately. I believe God exists beyond time so that when he created the universe, in a sense, all of time already existed and He could see it laid out (this would also explain why the prophesies recorded in the Old Testament were so darn accurate - to God the predicted events were already accomplished). But that doesn't force us to chose a certain way. We still make our choices freely and will be held accountable for those choices.

That's my thoughts, inadequate though they be... :^)

-Steve S.