(urth) Appearances of Inire

[António Pedro Marques]

John Watkins wrote (01-07-2010 13:18):
> I think there are in fact three options:
> 1)  Tzadkiel is, like a Christian archangel, more or less in direct
> contact with the will of the deity.  Thus he/she is to be completely
> trusted and is a more or less incontrovertible moral authority.
> 3)  Tzadkiel is a "higher" being in some meaningful sense but remains
> metaphysically removed from the divine, like the angel in "The Cock and
> the Angel."  His/her belief in the Increate and desire to do its will is
> sincere, and to that end he/she is just doing the best he/she can, but
> like the angel in the story Tzadkiel remains fallible and infinitely
> removed from the mind of the Increate.

Afaict 1 and 3 are just points in a continuum. Unless you push 1 further and 
make it so that Tzadkiel has no will at all but God's will. In that case 
Tzadkiel would not be a free agent but merely an extension of God. Not 
exactly the same as an angel. I don't think Tzadkiel is such an extension, 
so between 1 and 3 I think only 3, which is really more or less the same as 
the lesser sense of 1, works. It is just open to debate how fallible 
Tzadkiel is.

The Valar try not to commit evil because they're good, not because they're 
bound to Eru's will.

 > 2)  Tzadkiel is a creepy insectoid alien thing and a liar.  The
 > pretentions of religion are a means of controlling the human race.
 > I go back and forth between 2) and 3) myself.

Option 2 I think is untenable.

- If God is good, then it makes no sense to create a universe in which:
   + God's creatures are toys in an evil power's hands
   + God's creatures believe that the evil power is not evil at all and is 
doing God's work
   + those who oppose the evil power are not, generally speaking, better 
people than the others, and in fact seem to be worse.

- If God isn't good then by what standard can we call such an unfathomable 
being as Tzadkiel evil?

Keeping option 3 doesn't mean that the acts of Tzadkiel need no atoning for, 
it just means they're done with the best of intentions and knowledge. We 
have a saying here, 'Of [people with] good intentions is Hell full'.

Antonio