I know that this is going to be a quick answer, as I have class in 5 minutes, but I was thinking about the role of Illuvatar and why he did not always step in on good's behalf. Eru's role apparently fgoes in line with some of the precepts od deism. Deists basically belive(correct me if I'm wrong please), that there is a God, but he does not intervene or play a hand in every day matters. He basically created us, and then out of love, gave us the ability to reason and figure things out for ourselves. So there has to be an element of deism in Tolkien's works. But then again deism presupposes that there is only one God, not a series of demi-gods(Valar) like in Tolkien's work. I'll post on this again.