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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 2310648" data-attributes="member: 4937">I'm aware of that.No more so than he can relate to Sauron.  Gandalf's commentary on Sauron is instructive.  A better example would be the way that Gandalf tries to relate to Saruman, whose moral fall is apparantly not absolute.   Or at least, even if Gandalf believes it be absolute, his goodness compells him to make the pitch anyway as 'the right thing to do'.  It's pretty clear that beings which fell in eternal time aren't looked at in the same fashion.I'm afraid that I'd have to get into a discussion of Catholic doctrine on this, and not only am I not the best person for the job, but I'm not sure just how well the moderator's would appreciate this becoming an open (rather than cloaked) discussion of religion.  Suffice to say that to Tolkein (a Catholic as I'm sure you know), the changeability of the moral status of spiritual beings is not part of the archetype.  Once a spiritual being apprehends the nature of evil and makes a choice, its choice is eternal and irrevocable.  So a figure like Satan is enternally fallen from the moment of its apprehension of good and evil because there can never be more about the matter that it could learn.   Once this decision is made, it is completely unvacillating in its will to act on this decision.   Falling (or not falling) is a completely one way road.</blockquote>