For obvious reasons, the apparent freedom described by Tolkien, that Melkor possesses to explore and manipulate his world, is akin to the concept of ‘Angelic Freedom’. Giorgi Vachnadze, a “Scholar of Michel Foucault and Ludwig Wittgenstein” has written a very interesting piece on this subject entitled -“Freedom and Angelic Sin: A very short introduction to Angelology”. Not saying I agree with all of his analysis, but he lays out some the problems and conundrums that beefy theologians such as Augustine, Anselm and Aquinas wrestled with. He states –
“Further, Augustine explains that the world of an Angel, as stated before, is much simpler than the human world. An angelic mind, in essence, comprehends only two things: Itself and God. To this, we may add the description offered by Thomas Aquinas which states that Angels employ only the intellect, the intuitive faculty of reason, without using discursive reason, which is used by human beings to make intuitive knowledge comprehensible in a reasonable manner. Angelic sin manifests itself in a perverse re-direction, an inversion within this binary constellation. By turning away from God, Lucifer had nothing but his own mind as the object of affection, attention, worship or what have you. But nevertheless, the evil inversion, despite being immoral, was nevertheless perfect. This shows that, in the world of Angelology of the medieval scholastics, evil is not a product of error, mistakes or a mere deviation from the perfect and the divine. It is instead, a perfect re-direction of the divine away from a higher divinity. Evil and flawed are not in this case, synonymous.”
So…. in R.O.P (Season 2) when Sauron says to Celebrimbor that his master Morgoth was driven to destroy all life, whereas he [Sauron] is driven by the desire to reorganize and perfect Middle-earth - (“What he sought to destroy, I sought only to perfect”) He sees Middle-earth as having been abandoned by its own creators and in need of ‘re-direction’ towards what he believes to be ‘perfection’ – the perfection of his own dominion and sovereignty. Sauron’s character is accurately scripted to be in tandem with a traditional Luciferic agenda. What I find particularly interesting is this concept of the “Void” – “He had gone often alone into the [void places] seeking the Imperishable Flame”. What are these places and does Tolkien conceive of them as having a scriptural analog? Some speculate the ‘Imperishable Flame’ is the center of all creation and equates with the Holy Spirit (?) Seeking him apart from God, would be an attempt to divide his ontological essence – thus an attempt at “reordering” as Vachnadze’s article demonstrates. That’s what Satan often does – He tries to divide The Father from The Son by quelching The Spirit. The traditional Biblical understanding though is that God is omnipresent – i.e.- ‘There is no place where God is not’. Melkor seems to have alluded Ilúvatar’s presence and attention for a moment allowing him to sew chaos – Or… is that all part of the plan in the first place? If God is “Omnipresent”, then Lucifer’s pride and angelic rebellion as they are traditionally understood, are well within his awareness, but his ontology of Love & Freedom allows for even such a rebellion to occur, and thus ultimately infect creation itself.
Beyond the epistemological, Morgoth being is dissolved in Arda, as his "essence" is dispersed in the world. So he is the liar and also the tares, as his dissonant music corrupts creation
For obvious reasons, the apparent freedom described by Tolkien, that Melkor possesses to explore and manipulate his world, is akin to the concept of ‘Angelic Freedom’. Giorgi Vachnadze, a “Scholar of Michel Foucault and Ludwig Wittgenstein” has written a very interesting piece on this subject entitled -“Freedom and Angelic Sin: A very short introduction to Angelology”. Not saying I agree with all of his analysis, but he lays out some the problems and conundrums that beefy theologians such as Augustine, Anselm and Aquinas wrestled with. He states –
“Further, Augustine explains that the world of an Angel, as stated before, is much simpler than the human world. An angelic mind, in essence, comprehends only two things: Itself and God. To this, we may add the description offered by Thomas Aquinas which states that Angels employ only the intellect, the intuitive faculty of reason, without using discursive reason, which is used by human beings to make intuitive knowledge comprehensible in a reasonable manner. Angelic sin manifests itself in a perverse re-direction, an inversion within this binary constellation. By turning away from God, Lucifer had nothing but his own mind as the object of affection, attention, worship or what have you. But nevertheless, the evil inversion, despite being immoral, was nevertheless perfect. This shows that, in the world of Angelology of the medieval scholastics, evil is not a product of error, mistakes or a mere deviation from the perfect and the divine. It is instead, a perfect re-direction of the divine away from a higher divinity. Evil and flawed are not in this case, synonymous.”
So…. in R.O.P (Season 2) when Sauron says to Celebrimbor that his master Morgoth was driven to destroy all life, whereas he [Sauron] is driven by the desire to reorganize and perfect Middle-earth - (“What he sought to destroy, I sought only to perfect”) He sees Middle-earth as having been abandoned by its own creators and in need of ‘re-direction’ towards what he believes to be ‘perfection’ – the perfection of his own dominion and sovereignty. Sauron’s character is accurately scripted to be in tandem with a traditional Luciferic agenda. What I find particularly interesting is this concept of the “Void” – “He had gone often alone into the [void places] seeking the Imperishable Flame”. What are these places and does Tolkien conceive of them as having a scriptural analog? Some speculate the ‘Imperishable Flame’ is the center of all creation and equates with the Holy Spirit (?) Seeking him apart from God, would be an attempt to divide his ontological essence – thus an attempt at “reordering” as Vachnadze’s article demonstrates. That’s what Satan often does – He tries to divide The Father from The Son by quelching The Spirit. The traditional Biblical understanding though is that God is omnipresent – i.e.- ‘There is no place where God is not’. Melkor seems to have alluded Ilúvatar’s presence and attention for a moment allowing him to sew chaos – Or… is that all part of the plan in the first place? If God is “Omnipresent”, then Lucifer’s pride and angelic rebellion as they are traditionally understood, are well within his awareness, but his ontology of Love & Freedom allows for even such a rebellion to occur, and thus ultimately infect creation itself.
Beyond the epistemological, Morgoth being is dissolved in Arda, as his "essence" is dispersed in the world. So he is the liar and also the tares, as his dissonant music corrupts creation