Origins of Iluvatar

[Sirithheruwen]

I don't know much about the Silmarillion, and I was wondering if some of the more learned fans could answer this question for me:

The beginning of the Silmarillion seemed very sudden to me, and what always bothered me was that Tolkien didn't expand on Iluvatar very much. Was he always there, like God, or was he created by some greater spirit? Basically, what are the origins of Iluvatar?

Thanks!

[Yavanna228]

From what I understand about Iluvatar, he is like a God figure, the Great Spirit, if you will, that is before all and runs through all things he creates. I don't know that Tolkien ever expanded on Iluvatar very much since I don't have a copy of his Letters. Then again, how could you really elaborate on God? Tolkien was writing to a basically Christianised world who had some basic ideas about God, such as His eternal Self, so perhaps he thought they would be familiar enough with the entity of Iluvatar.
Peace

[Duncariel]

To be a creator, you do not necessarily have to have been created. Illuvatar is Tolkien's God-figure, his thought became reality. In the Ainulindale it explains all o' that interesting information that would take days to type.

[kharank]

Like many religions in our day and age, there are Creators, who somehow are around before anything in actually created. Its one of the things religious people just have to accept, but any questions as to how they came about - much like the chicken and the egg - can lead to many sleepless nights, and severe paranoia.

Off topic, the egg came first!! Dinosaurs laid eggs years before chickens evolved...interesting that...wonder if there were any evolutionist theories in middle-earth??

[Evisse the Blue]

To be a creator, you do not necessarily have to have been created.

Yes, but mythologies, usually expand on this idea, and tell in detail not only how the earth was made, but also how the original creatures came into being. Take the Norse sagas, for instance, which greatly inspired Tolkien's works. They tell that in the beginning there was a void, wich broke in two, and so forth; and later the good beings, the Aesir, and the bad ones, the Giants, 'appeared' in a miraculous way, of course, but not unexplained by the storyteller. Although I see you arguing further that Iluvatar is similar in all respects to the Christian God, I still think that the Silm, including the Valaquenta, has more in common with myths than with the Bible.

I do not know too much about Tolkien's work as a whole either, having read only disparate books, but I recall having read that he didn't provide an explanation as to how the Sun or Moon appeared either. (Although he did tell about the stars and the constellations).

[Sharkû]

Eru's origins would be a theological question most of all.

As such, I do not see why Eru needs to have anything to do with Sagas. Tolkien was an intelligent man, not everything he ever wrote needs to be based on them. The counterparts of mythological gods would be the Valar anyway, and their creation is explained.
And Tolkien devoted ample space and writing to the creation of the sun and the moon, in various and later radically new conceptions.

[The Saucepan Man]

The Silmarillion starts in much the same way as the Bible starts ...

[Knight of Gondor]

Answering where Eru came from is just like asking where God came from. God is above all. He always was, and always is, and always will be. He had no creator, because he is not created. Of course, this concept, along with Salvation and Eternal life are terribly hard to grasp for wimpy 'ol mortals like us, but we can't help but be mortals.

Its one of the things religious people just have to accept, but any questions as to how they came about - much like the chicken and the egg - can lead to many sleepless nights, and severe paranoia.
Off topic, the egg came first!! Dinosaurs laid eggs years before chickens evolved...interesting that...

I guess you can stick a fork in me and call me religous if you want to, but I got bad news for your "Which came first" answer: Dinosaurs had to come out of eggs too, so who laid the egg? Of course, there IS an answer, but just like the theory of evolution, it's based on faith: God created land life (chickens included) on Day 5, according to the Bible, so there you go!

wonder if there were any evolutionist theories in middle-earth??

Nope, I guess they - unlike many people today - saw no need to replace Eru with silly theories of how the earth originated my millions of years' random chance process.

Sorry if I took a rabbit trail there, heh heh. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Iarwain]

We always run into the same problems, being evolutionist or not. What came before? (Most) Religious people believe that God is infinite in existence (and Eru too), but scientific atheists point to darwinism and argue using that. Science, however, is just another mask covering a similar question: What came before the Big Bang? Is there another, larger plane of existence within which our universe is but the relative size of a proton? and if so, what comes after that? What lies deep within the most finite core of a quark? Is there an existence beyond humanity? Is there extraterrestrial life? How dow we explain the supernatural? If God is "dead", then why is the universe? You see, Nietzsche was wrong. Humanity will never cease to need God. He is woven into the fibre of existence, the questions we ask always lead that way, without aversion, without reason, and seemingly without answer.


Iarwain

P.S. Of all my posts as a member, this was probably the least relevent to the Downs, its deletion will occur immediately should anyone complain at all. So, beforehand, I sincerely appologize.

[Man of the Old Hope]

Quite simply, Tolkien conceived Eru Ilúvatar as God, meaning that Eru is unoriginate and self-existent, and is the Origin of all things (through the Great Music).

The meaning of the name, Eru, is 'The One', or 'He that is Alone' (cf. the Index to The Silmarillion); and of Ilúvatar, 'Father of All'.

While the translated 'Father of All' echoes the epithet given to Odin/Woden, 'Allfather', it is clear that Tolkien's concept of Eru Ilúvatar is informed more profoundly by Christian (and Jewish) beliefs about God.

And yes, the Valar do echo sundry pantheons in 'Indo-European' mythologies, but in their functions (and though espoused, in their lack of offspring) they are much more akin to the angelic powers set as guardians over various planets and natural forces in speculative Jewish and Christian angelology.

In Letter 131 (To Milton Waldman), Tolkien wrote:

'The cycles begin with a cosmological myth: the Music of the Ainur. God and the Valar (or powers: Englished as gods) are revealed. These latter are as we should say angelic powers, whose function is to exercise delegated authority in their spheres (of rule and government, not creation, making or re-making). They are 'divine', that is, were originally 'outside' and existed 'before' the making of the world. Their power and wisdom is derived from their Knowledge of the cosmological drama, which they perceived first as a drama (that is in a fashion we perceive a story composed by some-one else), and later as a 'reality'. On the side of mere narrative device, this is, of course, meant to provide beings of the same order of beauty, power, and majesty as the 'gods' of higher mythology, which can yet be accepted - well, shall we say baldly, by a mind that believes in the Blessed Trinity.'

[Noxomanus]

no need to replace Eru with silly theories of how the earth originated my millions of years' random chance process.

silly theories

I hope this is not serious. You might not believe in them but that's no reason to call them silly. It's so terrible non-believers allways have to respect believers but the latter can say whatever they want of what non-believers think of as true.

[The Barrow-Wight]

'silly theories' was bait, and you took it.

No more baiting, no more biting. Stay on target!

To clarify my meaning: Please focus on the Middle-earth aspects of this conversation without injecting religious (or non-religious) opinion.

[ September 29, 2003: Message edited by: The Barrow-Wight ]

[Knight of Gondor]

Barrow-wight and the rest: Once again, I misdirected the conversation down the wrong lane. I didn't mean to "bait" anyone, so please don't take offense.

To clarify my meaning: Please focus on the Middle-earth aspects of this conversation without injecting religious (or non-religious) opinion.

While discussion about today's modern views regarding Origins don't belong, I agree, in all due respect Mr. Wight I don't see how we can discuss the origin of Tolkien's God figure without injecting some measure of religious opinion.

but I recall having read that he didn't provide an explanation as to how the Sun or Moon appeared either

I thought the silmarillion made clear that sun & moon were made by the Valar from the last fruits of the two Trees (created I thought because of Yavanna's attempt to heal the Trees). Vessels were made with the fruits & 2 Ainur were the skippers of those vessels ...

[Iarhen]

Can we say that Eru is perfect when his older and most similar to him son resulted in the beggining of Evil?

Morgoth came out evil as he sprung out of Eru's mind...

[Arothir]

Eru could be could be compared to Uranus in Greek mythology, that is Father Heaven. This would make the Valar on the same plane as the Greek Gods. If anyone's read BoLT, the Valar do seem like a big divine family.

[Man of the Old Hope]

I quite disagree that Eru Ilúvatar and the Valar may be compared with Uranus and the Greek Titans and Olympian gods. Insofar as they have charge over various spheres and realms, yes, the Valar do resemble various "Indo-European" pantheons. But at the same time they also strongly resemble angelic powers in Jewish-Christian "mythology", given charge over sundry spheres of the universe. In fact, while Tolkien sometimes calls the Valar, "the gods", and admits that the Valar provide a narrative order of beauty, power, and majesty like the gods of "higher mythology", he also refers to them as "angelic powers" from time to time, and admits that he has conceived of them in such a way that a Christian monotheist, "a mind that believes in the Blessed Trinity", can accept them.

To conceive of the Valar as being merely analogous to the Olympians would, I think, misconstrue the mythology and cosmogony (dare I say, theology?) that Tolkien created in the Valaquenta and the Ainulindalë.

As to the question of a "perfect" Eru conceiving of an evil power like Melkor, let me offer a couple of observations.

First, the relevant texts bear examining:

"There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Ilúvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made."

This beginning of the Ainulindalë makes it clear that the Ainur, among whom Melkor and Manwë were greatest, were indeed the offspring of the Mind of Eru Ilúvatar.

A bit further on we read:

"But now Ilúvatar sat and hearkened, and for a great while it seemed good to him, for in the music there were no flaws. But as the theme progressed, it came into the heart of Melkor to interweave matters of his own imagining that were not in accord with the theme of Ilúvatar; for he sought therein to increase the power and glory of the part assigned to himself. To Melkor among the Ainur had been given the greatest gifts of power and knowledge, and he had a share in all the gifts of his brethren. He had gone often alone into the void places seeking the Imperishable Flame; for desire grew hot within him to bring into Being things of his own, and it seemed to him that Ilúvatar took no thought for the Void, and he was impatient of its emptiness. Yet he found not the Fire, for it is with Ilúvatar. But being alone he had begun to conceive thoughts of his own unlike those of his brethren."

Several observations may be made regarding this text. First, it is quite clear that the traditional Christian (and to some extent, Jewish) understanding of the biblical character known as Satan (the Adversary) informed Tolkien's portrayal of Melkor and his fall. Melkor, like Satan, is created good and in his arrogance comes to oppose Eru (God). "For in the music there were no flaws" - we may conclude that Melkor did not spring from the Mind of Eru an evil being. Melkor's evil was a thing that developed after he sprang forth from Eru's thought.

Second, you will note that the description of Melkor given here, essentially a description of his fall from goodness (expanded on a bit by the text "Of the Enemies" in the Valaquenta), isn't particularly evil. It seems to be that Melkor is simply impatient. One might even be inclined to think (as a created being) that Melkor's impatience at Eru Ilúvatar's lack of interest in filling the void with creation was right and proper.

And here is the essence of Melkor's evil (indeed, of all evil that opposes God): it is evil because it seeks autonomy from Eru Ilúvatar. Melkor seeks the Imperishable Flame apart from Eru Ilúvatar, with Whom dwells the Flame. Melkor seeks creativity and his own notions of "goodness" apart from Ilúvatar, in impatient attempts at autonomy.

Melkor becomes evil because he, in exercising freedom granted him by Ilúvatar, seeks to define himself, seeks to create and to fill the void, apart from Eru Ilúvatar.

In Christian theology, God is not "good" because he measures up to some abstract standard of good. Rather, "good" is defined as that which reflects God. Neither is God "perfect" because he fulfills an abstract definition of perfection. God is perfect (whole and complete), period. That which is "perfect" therefore is to be understood as that which reflects the perfection, or completeness, of God.

Evil, on the other hand, is that which opposes God. Period. No abstractions of "good" and "evil". Simply God, and that which reflects God, and what opposes God.

It is this theology that formed Tolkien as a Roman Catholic, and I think that it is this theology that informed his conception of Eru Ilúvatar and Melkor's fall into evil (opposition to Eru). Melkor is evil not because in the beginning he matches some abstract notion of "evil", but because he seeks to define himself without reference to Eru Ilúvatar, because he seeks arrogant autonomy from Ilúvatar. He falls into the sort of horrible destructiveness that evil invariably does because in defining himself against and apart from Eru, the Source and Origin of Being, he cuts himself off from the creating and sustaining power that resides only in Eru Ilúvatar and his great theme of creation and is left being able only to corrupt and to destroy what Eru Ilúvatar has made.

[Iarwain]

Again, to correct popular belief, it is said nowhere that Satan was an angel, least of all most powerful, in the Bible, New Testament and Old. That common idea comes from the genius mind of John Milton, author of Paradise Lost, which poses Satan as the fallen chief of angels. Therefore, while Tolkien might have accepted Milton's idea as part of his faith (many Christians do so), it isn't a literal part of the text.

Iarwain

[Man of the Old Hope]

Again, to correct popular belief, it is said nowhere that Satan was an angel, least of all most powerful, in the Bible, New Testament and Old.

This is quite true, though the Pauline epistles remark that Satan can appear as "an angel of light" (2 Corinthians) and as the "prince of the powers of the air" (understood both by the Fathers and by the medieval theologians to be fallen angelic powers).

Late Jewish traditions (early AD) state that Satan had been an angel of high rank, and apply a passage in Isaiah that refers to the fall of "Lucifer", the "shining one", to the fall of Satan.

Gregory the Great (c. 540-604) in his Moralia, after listing nine hierarchic orders, says this of Satan, "he wore all of them [all the angels] as a garment, transcending them all in glory and knowledge." Thomas Aquinas (1274-1323), greatest of the Doctors (Teachers) of the Church, designated Satan as "the first angel who sinned" and argued that, as to his original order, Satan was not of the seraphim but of the cherubim, because "the cherubim is [sic] derived from knowledge, which is compatible with mortal sin" (Summa Theologica 1, 7th article). According to Jerome, Gregory of Nyssa, Origen, Ambrosiaster, and others, Satan will be reinstated in his "pristine splendor and original rank."

So, while John Milton gives us a splendidly compelling poetic portrait of Satan as a fallen angel, the idea did not originate with him, and had been an accepted notion in Christian and Jewish theology for over a millenium and a half.

[Man of the Old Hope]

By the way, sorry to be engaging in a quasi-theological argument here. Just wanting to defend my point about Melkor and his rebellion.

[Gwaihir the Windlord]

Man of Old Hope, the statement that the Valar/Powers/Gods of the West cannot be compared to the Gods of Olympus is not true, you know. I've debated this in at least one other thread. Of course they can be compared, as there is much that can be seen to be similar between them; that is not to say that the Valar in any way directly represent the Gods of ancient Classic heathenism.

After all, the Valar can also be compared to Angels under God -- Illuvatar, of course. You have said that you feel this to be a better comparison. Howsoever this may be, neither of them can be said rightfully to be the same as Tolkien's Valar situation. They are, after all, their own seperate thing from either old Greek/Roman mythology, or from God's Angels of Heaven.

Both comparisons can therefore be made interestingly and with value, but I would not consider one to be 'better' than the other.

[Man of the Old Hope]

Quite right, Gwaihir. That was a foolish overstatement on my part for which I beg Arothir's pardon.

I do stand by the subsequent, more precise statement that I wrote:

To conceive of the Valar as being merely analogous to the Olympians would, I think, misconstrue the mythology and cosmogony (dare I say, theology?) that Tolkien created in the Valaquenta and the Ainulindalë.

(Meaning that construing the Valar as analogous to or comparative with the Olympians alone would be a misconstrual. And of course, Eru Ilúvatar does not beget the Valar in the way that Uranus got the Titans on Gaia, or the way that Cronos begat his Olympian progeny on Rhea. In fact, Eru would be similar to Uranus were Eru to have produced (by his thought) not only the Valar but also the monstrous creatures like werewolves, orcs, and dragons that Melkor "created" by corruption, recalling the notion that Uranus was the father not only of the Titans, but also of the monstrous Cyclops and Hecatoncheires.)

[Arothir]

Pardon given Man of the Old Hope! And happily too! Comparing Uranus to Eru was somewhat of an overstatement on my part. Eru merely reminds me of him. After all Iluvatar means allfather. Having read the Lost Tales recently(again)I thought because the way the Gods were so vividly portrayed. Ulmo, the Seagod, was a rival to Osse, in the same way that the Greek gods had rivals amongst each other.

[ October 02, 2003: Message edited by: Arothir ]

[Gwaihir the Windlord]

Quite right. And the Lost Tales's chief interest, for me, is in fact the earlier (and truly more vivid) concepton of the Valar that I find hugely delighting.

Illuvatar is vastly different to any of the Greek or Roman deities though, I would have thought. He is very much a representation of our own God more than anything; in the full complexity of everything. I feel Tolkien's mythologies to give quite an insight into God as well, through this -- something I'm planning writing an essay on, actually, in the fullness of time (whenever that may be).