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11-17-2012, 11:45 PM | #1 |
Haunting Spirit
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Christianity and Tolkien
Christianity and Tolkien
For what it’s worth, I’m an atheist, and an anti-theist. By this I mean that I not only disbelieve in any god, I also find many forms of theism morally objectionable. From the outset I want to say that this is not a post about religion per se, its merits or demerits. It is about the curious fact that as an atheist, and as an anti-theist, I still enjoy Tolkien’s books. On one level this isn’t really surprising at all: Tolkien’s books obviously appeal to a wide range of individuals of all types: his creations are diverse enough to accommodate many different world views. Nevertheless, Tolkien was himself a Christian and his Catholicism was evidently a very central part of his self-identity. Along with the myriad other influences in his persona and especially professional life, Tolkien’s religion contributed to the form that his creation eventually took. There is one god, a set of demigods and a whole ambiguous theology that relates the destinies, fates and choices of these immortals to the more folkloric Elves and the hobbits. There have been myriad books about Tolkien written from an explicitly Christian perspective. The most recent “The Christian World of the Hobbit”, by Devin Brown, continues this tradition. Of course most of the most well known and highly regarded critical work on Tolkien has taken place from a neutral perspective – Rosebury and Shippey come to mind. Nevertheless, there is a definite trend for academic and other works on Tolkien to approach his work from a perspective that already considers Christianity in some form to be true. My questions are these: Do you think it is reasonable to approach an author, from an academic point of view, with a religious world view already in mind? Secondly, how do you think your faith or lack of it informs your reading of Tolkien? For example, are you more disposed to feel that Eucatastrophe should define Tolkien’s stories, and are wont to explain away its absence, as in The Children of Hurin? The second part of my question concerns Christianity itself in Tolkien. How do you think that one can judge the effect of a certain worldview on a literary work? What counts as “Christian” and “not-Christian” in Tolkien? Do you think some Christians overemphasise the “Christian” themes in Tolkien’s work? To answer this question let’s take a look at what kinds of beliefs constitute Christianity: Christians will probably believe one, some or all of these following propositions. Note, of course, that not all Christians will believe all of these propositions, so if you’re a Christian and you feel misrepresented, I’m telling you now that this list is neither exhaustive nor does it describe every individual who calls themselves a Christian. 1. There exists an eternal, all-powerfull, all-knowing creator God, who, though of one essence, exists in three distinct, but not separate, persons. 2. There exists a devil, Satan, and numerous other demonic beings as well as angels, archangels, etc. 3. The earth is not billions of years in age, but created by God six to ten thousand years ago. 4. There was an actual Adam and Eve in a literal Garden of Eden who sinned and brought upon the world the horrible suffering it contains 5. God has a morally sufficient reason for permitting all the evil that ever has or ever will occur. 6. A first – century Galilean Jew, Jesus, was born of a virgin as an incarnate God in the flesh and performed numerous miracles during his life. 7. This Jesus was crucified according to specific prophecies in the Old Testament as a divine sacrifice to atone for the past, present and future sins of the world. 8. Jesus was resurrected 9. There is life after death, and only people who have ace[ted a legitimate form of Christian belief will go to eternal bliss in heaven, while all others, with a few rare exceptions, will suffer an eternity of torment in hell. For each of these points, it seems to me questionable that Tolkien depicted a universe in which they are true with any fidelity in his books. For example, it is indeed unclear that Eru is all-loving, all-powerful, and all-knowing. There is certainly a significant demonic figure, Morgoth, but he is unlike Satan in many ways - he is incarnated and actually acts out deeds in person in the world. Moreover, any sufficiently powerful and malevolent being in Tolkien’s universe (e.g. Sauron, or Galadrial had she given in to temptation) would appear to mortals as a kind of Satanic figure. The precise age of the world in Tolkien is not really known, and certainly seems to be more than six to ten thousand years. Of course there are vague similarities; Morgoth does resemble Satan in some respects, and Eru does indeed conjure a sense of the biblical God. Nevertheless I contend that it is in the moral dimension where Tolkien, consciously or not, most drastically departs from Christian doctrine. Unlike the Christian God, Eru is not in fact a lawgiver, nor does he make covenants with particular peoples, or punish others when they fail. Certainly, there is the example of Numénor, which is the most biblical of Tolkien’s stories, but in general Tolkien’s characters never decide upon their moral actions with reference to notions of “judgement” or “righteousness”. That which is good is good for its own sake (a very humanistic point that is often overlooked in Tolkien, I think). Nor, in Tolkien, is there any notion of “Sin”. As I understand it, sin describes not merely wrongdoing, but wrongdoing that is in some sense an affront to God’s character, and which requires atonement. The ultimate atonement, the death of Jesus, is said, therefore, to be necessary because all humanity sins and only sacrifice is righteous enough in God’s eyes to expunge it. In Middle-earth, ethical choices carry great weight and consequence, but they are not made in the face of divine commandments or threats of retribution. Likewise, a Jesus figure would seem out of place in Middle-earth (and indeed we see no equivalent) as the whole notion of “sin” is never broached. Evil, both natural and human, in Tolkien does not come about as a result of some direct analogue to the Fall – whereby humans were once morally perfect before they descended into darkness – but from the beginning the capacity for evil in the world was incarnate within it. Likewise, notions like shame and guilt are out of place in Middle-earth: certainly individuals are morally judged by their peers, but they are never taught to be shameful of their humanity, due to some kind of inherent sinful nature. In short, it seems to me that a case can be made that the Christian part of Tolkien’s work has been radically overstated, if you actually take his work and compare it to commonly held Christian doctrines. In the moral dimension especially Tolkien seems to drift away from Christian concepts of righteousness and wrongdoing, which revolve around the notion of sin, a concept that never makes itself apparent in Tolkien’s writing. One might say, but of course Tolkien’s work is not explicitly Christian. In what way, then, is it Christian at all? If it lacks the Christian outlook on moral truth (that moral goodness is that which is pleasing to and sanctioned by God, and badness is “sin”) then how is Christianity manifested? Perhaps through the vague notion of a benevolent God? This is indeed more Christian, than, say, Buddhist, but it could equally be pantheistic or even polytheistic. For example, when Gandalf says to Frodo that he was “meant” to find the ring, nothing in the text leads the reader it is a somewhat Christianlike god pulling all the strings behind the scenes – the suggestion is suitably vague. Thoughts? Last edited by tumhalad2; 11-17-2012 at 11:49 PM. |
11-19-2012, 01:51 AM | #2 |
Shade of Carn Dûm
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Your list of Christian beliefs appears to represent what may be called Fundamentalist Christian beliefs or Biblical Literalist Christian beliefs. Most people who identify themselves as Christians don’t accept some of them or at least are uncertain of some of them.
Tolkien was a self-identified Roman Catholic Christian and not a Biblical Literalist or Fundamentalist Christian. Like many Christians he was also a freethinker in many areas, rationalizing his own idiosyncratic beliefs as being in accord with his church or simply disagreeing with his church. See http://www.simpletoremember.com/vita...redibility.htm for one example of where J. R. R. Tolkien very much disagreed with Roman Catholic practice. Did Tolkien think he was right and that the Pope and almost the entire Roman Catholic priesthood was wrong and most of the laity was wrong? Did he think God was against them? I can only guess what Tolkien might have thought. What does the Roman Catholic Church believe? You will find many quibbles by teachers within that church about what they believe and many differences in opinions. In my own country of Canada the province of Quebec is over 83% Roman Catholic. Over 60% of the population of Quebec has voted in polls that they accept same-sex marriage (which became legal in Quebec in 2004). Do the math yourself. The Roman Catholic hierarchy still officially and vehemently oppose same-sex marriage but over a majority of their parishioners disagree. So what does the Roman Catholic Church in Quebec believe? It depends on whether you define the Roman Catholic Church as only the official Roman Catholic Church hierarchy or also include the Roman Catholic Church laity. See here for another eye-opener. http://www.simpletoremember.com/vita...redibility.htm . Judaism Online sent some queries about statements in the Christian Gospels to Pope John Paul II in 1995 and these queries were eventually passed on for response by the theologian Raymond E. Brown. Raymond E. Brown indicated that the Gospels were not complete enough or sufficiently accurate in what they said to necessarily support a physical resurrection of Jesus or a virginal conception of Mary. For Raymond E. Brown′s prestige as a Roman Catholic theologian, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_E._Brown . Your supposed list of what Christians believe is nonsense when applied to all churches and even to all members of most churches. Tolkien himself, like most Roman Catholics who considered it, accepted more-or-less the findings of modern geology over dead reckoning from Biblical genealogies for considering the age of the Earth. He wasn’t a crank. In Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, letter 211, he admits that his Three Ages of Middle-earth are entirely imaginary and writes: I could have fitted things in with greater versimilitude, if the story had not become too far developed, before the question ever occurred to me. I doubt if there would have been much gain; and I hope the, evidently long but undefined, gap¹ in time between the Fall of Barad-dûr and our Days is sufficient for ‘literary credibility’, even for readers acquainted with what is known or surmised of ‘pre-history’.That is, the fall of Barad-dûr occurs approximately in 4,000 BCE, about the latest date which Biblical Literalists ascribe to creation, and in Tolkien’s legendarium the first year of the Sun occurs 7,063 years before that. The Biblical creation takes seven days. Tolkien’s creation occurs as a model in a single musical session and then in reality in ages of time in which plants, and many living creatures are created, then ages later Elves first awaken, then Dwarves, and then Moon and Sun later still and Man awakens with the Sun, not even the order the same as the Biblical order. In Morgth’s Ring (HoME 10) there are a group of late Tolkien essays under the group title of “Myths Transformed″ in which Tolkien attempts to reconcile his Silmarillion account, not with the Bible, but with science. Tolkien starts on it but finds it too destructive of the story to continue. Tolkien had been in a more playful mood when he invented the details of his cosmos. Tolkien then decides that his Silmarillion must be based on distorted Mannish histories in which Elvish truths are mixed with corruptions of Men. In reality the Sun and Moon were not the fruit and flower of two trees and the Sun was at least coeval with the Earth. There is no Sabbath day as the last day of creation upon which God rested. Tolkien has, somewhat carelessly provided modern English weekdays in The Hobbit and so is stuck with a seven-day week. He explains in Appendix D in The Return of the King that this as an expansion of an older six-days Elvish week, and explains that the English weekday names are simply substitutions in his English rendering for the Hobbit names. But the day of celebration in the week is Friday as in Muslim practice, instead of Saturday as in Jewish practice, and instead of Sunday as in Christian practice. Some days in the year have no special weekday which throws off any firm synchronism with our modern calendar. Morgoth’s Ring also contains a somewhat vague story of the Fall in which there appear to be many people, not just Adam and Eve and death is shown to be misrepresented by Morgoth, not a punishment for the eating of a fruit. Tolkien imagines his story as occurring in pre-Christian and probably pre-Abrahamic times. In a note to letter 153 Tolkien writes: There are thus no temples or ‘churches’ or fanes in this ‘world’ among ‘good’ peoples. They had little or no ‘religion’ in the sense of worship. For help they may call on a Vala (as Elbereth), as a Catholic might on a Saint, though no doubt knowing in theory as well as he that the power of the Vala was limited and derivative. But this is a ‘primitive age’: and these folk may be said to view the Valar as children view their parents or immediate adult superiors, and though they know they are subjects of the King he does not live in their country nor have there any dwelling. I do not think Hobbits practised any form of worship or prayer (unless through exceptional contact with Elves). The Númenóreans (and others of that branch of Humanity, that fought against Morgoth, even if they elected to remain in Middle-earth and did not go to Númenor: such as the Rohirrim) were pure monotheists. But there was no temple in Númenor (until Sauron introduced the cult of Morgoth). The top of the Mountain, the Meneltarma or Pillar of Heaven, was dedicated to Eru, the One, and there at any time privately, and at certain times publicly, God was invoked, praised, and adored: an imitation of the Valar and the Mountain of Aman. But Númenor fell and was destroyed and the Mountain engulfed, and there was no substitute. Among the exiles, remnants of the Faithful who had not adopted the false religion nor taken pan in the rebellion, religion as divine worship (though perhaps not as philosophy and metaphysics) seems to have played a small part; though a glimpse of it is caught in Faramir’s remark on ‘grace at meat’. Vol. II p. 285.From letter 165: The only criticism that annoyed me was one that it ‘contained no religion’ (and ‘no Women’, but that does not matter, and is not true anyway). It is a monotheistic world of ‘natural theology′. The odd fact that there are no churches, temples, or religious rites and ceremonies, is simply part of the historical climate depicted. It will be sufficiently explained, if (as now seems likely) the Silmarillion and other legends of the First and Second Ages are published. I am in any case myself a Christian; but the ‘Third Age’ was not a Christian world.There are other explanations which tend to repeat themselves. If you really wish to understand Tolkien’s Christianity, then you should read all his writing carefully and note that, as people are usually polite about such things and not nosy and since Tolkien gave few interviews, there is not much information about his internal spiritual life. You particularly should not assume the every Roman Catholic is a Biblical Literalist or Christian Fundamentalist. That shows enormous ignorance of religion as practised today. Last edited by jallanite; 11-19-2012 at 02:04 AM. |
11-19-2012, 03:39 AM | #3 | ||||
Haunting Spirit
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Moreover, I don't disagree that many Christians believe many different things and always have. I was merely setting a baseline: these are some common Christian doctrines that have been widely believed throughout history. It is only in recent times that moderate Christians have even been able to reinterprete many biblical stories and dogmas less literally. Quote:
In any case this was not meant to be about religion and as I said the kinds of precepts I outlines are not going to describe all Christians. Quote:
Moreover, as I mentioned, I was particularly interested in the moral vision of Christianity. Do Catholics, in general, not believe in the necessity of the atonement for sin? Do Catholics, in general, not believe that original sin is a real force in the world? Perhaps not nowadays in the era of psychology and other social sciences, but it's much more likely that Tolkien wouldh've believed in some variant of it. |
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11-19-2012, 05:47 AM | #4 | ||||||
Cryptic Aura
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11-19-2012, 06:46 AM | #5 |
A Voice That Gainsayeth
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Okay, let's start anew. Also, taking any religious beliefs or similar things into discussion is always like handling a barrel of gunpowder, because it can easily happen somebody with personal interest (either for or against) will take it personally or say something that will start an avalanche. But yes, from purely academic point of view... why not work with it.
Your list, tumhalad, with the note that it is selective, and also with the note what Bethberry had said, let's say we can work with it; after all, it's your thread and the question you pose. Although for the sake of discussion, even with regard to the questions you pose, I would put a bit different emphasis on some things. For example, the sin of Adam and Eve - or so-called "original sin", a pretty important doctrine especially from the mainstream Catholic perspective. I would put a bit more emphasis on the fact of the sin itself, for the sake of your discussion, and also in regards to what we can tell from Tolkien's writings: the belief in single Adam and Eve is not really that important, but simply that there is a certain sinfulness present in human nature, or brought upon every human by the tangle of evil that exists already when an innocent child comes into the world, and humans cannot avoid it - that definitely is there in Tolkien's works. (And also, many Christians, even in the past, understood it not literally, but the way I have just outlined, as a metaphore.) You very much omit one important thing, which is necessary part and in any case at least equally important to some things: "good deeds". Since you are asking about moral emphasis of Christianity, you cannot omit this. Because especially in Middle Ages, the appeal on morality has been very strong. The Reformation put more emphasis on the certainity of salvation despite one's sinfulness, but it never disappeared (and again some branches of Reformation put again even more emphasis on "personal holiness"). In any case, the moral appeal - the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, most of all Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in general, they are pretty essential and every Christian knows about them. About the "similarity". You could speak of so-called "outward similarities", like that the world is couple of thousands of years old, that there is some supranatural battle between angels and some fall of angels (Valar x Morgoth and co.), the fact that praise to Elbereth resembles Catholic prayers to Virgin Mary, the fact that some people like Gandalf are resurrected, the fact that the Istari come in flesh just like Jesus did, and so on. Then there are the "inner similarities", like in the mode, or in e.g. what values are emphasised. Love, forgiveness, humility, gratitude. And so on. I think exactly those values are important and they are the main thing that connects LotR and Christianity. These values are essential to the Christian teaching, the attribute of God to be loving and forgiving is one of the most important ones, despite the abovementioned human sinfulness. Thinking of course especially about the famous words of Gandalf's about Bilbo not deciding to kill Gollum, but there are many other examples. And what can be more humble than to have Hobbits as those who save Middle-Earth, instead of the shiny armies of powerful heroes? The refusal of power in the story of Jesus and his temptation by the Devil in the desert has the same basic ideas as e.g. Bilbo's refusal of the Ring. Gandalf's favourite "fool's hope" is the same thing - many draw the example of Frodo and Jesus, who is no big hero with shiny sword, but comes humbly in human's body, is born in a manger, and does not fight his enemies in power, but goes to the bitter end, knowing he must carry his cross (or his Ring, as far as the metaphore can go)... or (in my opinion with more trouble, but still) Jesus and Aragorn, because both are "Kings" in the same way, yet start with pretty humble beginnings, and only some people see them for what they truly are. Speaking of this, here's another core Christian belief you forgot to mention - the belief that Jesus will return, not anymore as the defeated one, but victorious, at the end of the days, when the evil shall be finally destroyed. *That* is, of course, the Return of the King, and also the view of Middle Earth, to the End of Days. Lots of it depends on the unpublished stuff, there are hints scattered throughout LotR and Silmarillion, but not much. What you said about there not being "sin against Eru" present in Middle-Earth - well, there of course IS. It is not so common, of course, but it appears. Just think about the Númenoreans making bloody sacrifices to Melkor and then the divine punishment coming only after Manwë and all called to Eru, who changed the shape of the world. Indeed, the sins of the Númenoreans were so terrible at that point that they "cried unto the heavens", to use that terminology. Moreover, even in Christianity, there are two levels of sin, always, not just the one towards God, which you seem to emphasise. There is also sin towards fellow humans, and that of course can be seen in Tolkien a lot. They are interlinked, as is shown especially in the Old Testament understanding of holiness. The "twin commandment of love", which is called the essential summary of all the "law", goes this way: Love thy god with all thy strength, and love thy neighbour as thyself. One cannot exist without the other. Sin to human is also a sin towards God (or in Jesus' words: "whatever you have done to one of your bretheren, you have done to me"). Also, Tolkien seemed to work with the "looking towards redemption" in his unpublished works. To add, if you have access to it, you could read the tale of Finrod and Andreth. If there is anything that could bring some light to the topic of what is the role of Men in Middle-Earth and their relationship to divinity, it is this.
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11-19-2012, 09:57 AM | #6 | ||||||||
Pile O'Bones
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There is indeed a concept of 'sin,' people's choices and deeds is hugely influential in how their natures develop and their ultimate fates. Gollum is a fallen soul who struggles to find redemption and fails for example. Aragorn is redeeming the fallen line of the kings and making it new and worthy. Earendil restores the covenant between the Children of Illuvatar and the Valar etc. Where you have redemption, you have sin. Quote:
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Yes, Tolkien's work is not one big Christian allegory, but if you take the Chrisitanity out of it, you'd have something very very different. Last edited by Draugohtar; 11-19-2012 at 07:21 PM. |
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11-19-2012, 11:27 AM | #7 |
Itinerant Songster
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After doing a quick search on the two words that most caught my attention, "worldview" and "evil", it appears that my thoughts have not yet been represented.
First for the necessary background: I am an orthodox Christian. Enough said about that. As to worldview, I think that not bringing a world view to a piece of literature is impossible. Everyone has a worldview. What that worldview consists of is going to determine the filters through which one reads a piece of literature. If, for example, one believes that only that which can be observed by the five senses are true, one will find it necessary to suspend one's disbelief when confronted with phenomena that don't fit that description. As to evil, the curious thing about Tolkien (and C.S. Lewis as well) is that their view of evil is at odds with the modern view (think Star Trek). This has much to do with their worldview. Their view of evil is also at odds with that presented in the Star Wars mythos. In Star Trek (i.e. the modern), evil is seen as largely brought about by misunderstandings between people or cultures, and be overcome by enlightened discussion and a meeting of minds. In Star Wars, evil is seen as an equal and opposite to good, and the possibility that good can be ultimately defeated, is real. In Tolkien, the view of evil is that it is real, and it is a twistedness (think 'wraith') and a negative, "less than" good. That good will ultimate prevail is a given. This does not take away from the reality of evil, nor its power to ruin and hurt. Nor does it take away from its ability to corrupt that which is or once was good. But this view of evil is fundamentally Christian. It is true that T.A. Shippey argues that Tolkien keeps the appearance of a Manichaean evil (i.e. Star Wars) before the reader, but if one does a keen reading of LotR, one finds that the prevailing view is that evil will not in the end prevail, indeed cannot. This is a Christian view of evil. Even though it is a Christian view, that does not mean that it will not appeal to a non-Christian or atheist, because humans have an inherent need for good to prevail. It's just the way we're wired. |
11-19-2012, 11:44 PM | #8 | |||||||
Shade of Carn Dûm
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Yes, there are today those who still believe the medieval Christian worldview. There are even those who believe the world is actually flat rather than spherical. There are Hindus who literally believe the Mahabharata. But to choose the medieval Christian worldview as a baseline doesn’t fit in a discussion supposedly about Tolkien’s religion. Tolkien didn’t believe in the medieval worldview in reality, any more than he believed in Elves in reality. If you want to talk about Tolkien’s religious beliefs, a supposed baseline that does not represent many of those beliefs is far less useful compared to one which represents those beliefs. But that would mostly be guesswork outside of areas where Tolkien has expressed a particular belief. One finds oddities, such as Tolkien’s casual treatment of the Sabbath day, which historically apparently derives from a continuous seven-day planetary cycle apparently known both to Hebrews and Phoenicians. Tolkien casually breaks up the cycle and ignores the Biblical connection with creation. Your baseline misses much that should be there, either because Tolkien agrees with the traditions of traditional Christianity or presents a drastic modification of them which should equally be mentioned. Quote:
But most Christian probably don’t believe in a literal Adam and Eve or a creation in approximately 4,000 BCE. If you feel otherwise, I can′t change your feelings, but without firm figures you are not convincing. I can’t find any figures that seem convincing either. I formerly belonged to the United Church of Canada, by far Canada’s largest Protestant Church, which strongly did not and does not believe that everything in the Christian Bible is literally true and very strongly supports same-sex marriage. That may influence my opinions of your attempts to use a baseline that seems to me to be a parody created by ignorance. But if you want to gratuitously insult your reader, go ahead. There was formerly a large site on religious toleration which contained all sorts of religious statistics and studies but it seems to be gone. Yes most Roman Catholics do believe in the virginal conception of Jesus. But Raymond E. Brown, who was arguably the most prestigious Roman Catholic theologian considered it very unlikely. I suspect Tolkien believed, but I don’t know because, so far as I know, he never explicitly said. Either did his friend C. S. Lewis. But Lewis tried to avoid talking about issues that divide Christians. Quote:
Tolkien apparently did not even believe in the Old Testament Bible sufficiently to even care that his legendarium didn’t fit into Biblical chronology. Tolkien very much did not try to fit his legendarium into Bible history and even put in some clear conflicts. Tolkien did base some of the moral underpinnings of his The Lord of the Rings on traditional Christian moral teaching. Quote:
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Nor do I know of any Christian belief that the Earth was created flat and was changed into a round world on the fall of Atlantis. Tolkien was largely just having great fun and was fitting in some Christian moral tradition as part of that fun. It was a game, which Tolkien sometimes took very seriously, otherwise it wouldn’t be as much fun. And Tolkien was usually very much offended by literary works which were preaching any religion. Probably because it was too obviously easy to invent anything in a fiction and attribute it to God or to present as a fictional truth that the author’s religious opinion is real. One finds books now written by Christians which amount to a plea that since the reader likes Tolkien’s fantasy, and Tolkien was a Christian, the reader should become a Christian. But Galadriel is really not much like the traditional Virgin Mary. She was a wife with a daughter named Celebrían and in Tolkien’s later writings a rebel against the Valar. And lembas being Christ in the guise of bread thousands of years before Christ existed doesn’t really make sense either. To begin with the writers forget it is not lawful in the Roman Catholic Church to allow any but Roman Catholics to eat the Holy Bread. But no matter how often Tolkien would insist that he was not writing allegory, commentators will find it. Not only obviously Christian commentators either. Quote:
Last edited by jallanite; 11-19-2012 at 11:50 PM. |
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11-20-2012, 11:36 AM | #9 |
Itinerant Songster
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I am probably the most conservative Christian posting on this thread. That said, I propose that we refuse to take offense if another post-er says something insulting. For one thing, the one posting may not be aware that his or her words are insulting, having a worldview quite at odds to our own.
This has been said in a way already, but I hope to say it with greater clarity if I may be so bold. Also, much of what I say has been said by Tolkien, better, in his Letters. Tolkien held that it is legitimate for a Christian author to create a Secondary world that is at odds with the Primary world in (a) details & (b) what is presented as true, on condition that the Secondary world has an inner consistency of reality, i.e., the that which is true within the world, makes sense to the reader. Another condition which Tolkien may not have felt necessary but I think is, is that the morality of a Secondary world cannot offend humanity; that is to say, murder can't be good and helping one's neighbor can't be evil. And if it is so in a Secondary world, the author had better explain why in order to keep the reader reading. Some of what we are talking about here goes deeper than some of us may realize. Tolkien and Lewis, for example, did actually prefer a medieval worldview to the modern, one that was quite at home to the Roman Catholic church. Jallanite refers to Galileo and Darwin. These two scientists could not have said and did what they did, if not for a virtual Continental Shift in philosophical point of view that occurred in the late middle ages, from a Platonic worldview to an Aristotelian. Lewis, especially, preferred the Platonic, and wrote about it in The Discarded Image. If you have read his space trilogy, you will get a sense for some of what he was trying to portray about the medieval worldview. But what about Tolkien? He deplored modernism and technological advancement for its own sake. But is that particularly Christian? Well, sort of. It is from the medieval worldview. Honestly, it would take a book to properly address Tumhalad's thoughts, and some have been written. Suffice it to say that Tolkien's Christianity was most certainly an influence upon his work, at least in terms of worldview, evil, and morality. But there are other influences as well, such as (1) his view of language and how language changes, (2) his love for things Nordic and Finnish, & (3) his love for Oxfordshire before it was 'ruined' by the encroachments of technology, just to name three. |
11-20-2012, 11:46 AM | #10 | ||||||||||||
Curmudgeonly Wordwraith
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But for the moment, I shall pretend this is a well-meaning post. I am an atheist as well, and a lapsed Roman Catholic. I don't find theism morally objectionable. Why should I? What one believes is one's own choice. What I do object to is when religion or religious zealots attempt to impose their beliefs on others, but that would also be true of various secular political systems run by fanatics; god does not corner the market on impositions. Quote:
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Now, some uncharitable folk would say that you are being a ...hmmm...what's the Internet designation for someone who makes inflammatory posts to provoke emotional responses? Ah well, it doesn't matter; I think that you are merely being obsessive. You touch on this subject, tinged with inveterate religion bashing in several posts, which can be readily reviewed by pulling up your posting history. In addition, the remaining balance of your threads contain negative criticisms of Tolkien from elsewhere: Mieville, Moorcock, Brinn, some imbecile named Dickerson (who wrote a thin volume entitled "How Tolkien Sucks"), a host of Internet blogging "dons", and, of all things, the addled worshipers of the Star Wars monomyth. Again, this continuing theme of referring to Tolkien's work in a pejorative manner can be easily discerned from your other posts. That being said, given the corpus of your posting history it does make one question your objective, and your objectivity. You profess to love the works of Tolkien; however, you spend the greater part of your time attacking him (or acting as the fait accompli of other poison pens). I find that odd. Have you noticed this about yourself? Quote:
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But as I mentioned previously, your posts seem to be inciteful rather than insightful, a recurrent theme that runs through your posting history.
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11-21-2012, 01:59 PM | #11 | |||||
Shade of Carn Dûm
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Discoveries about the nature of the universe were made by the early philosphers. The world was a sphere. Its size was measured. But then interest in investigation and discovery mostly ceased, until the Renaissance. Sir Isaac Newton, possibly the greatest scientist who has every lived, wrote mainly on the Christian Bible, attempting to date the Earth from its records. Quote:
And there are many other religious people who write scence-fiction. Last edited by jallanite; 11-21-2012 at 02:08 PM. |
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11-21-2012, 03:10 PM | #12 | |||
Blossom of Dwimordene
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I will try to be concise, answering the questions without going off on tangents.
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And if you think of it that way, atheism is also a kind of religion. And so is science. So whatever world view you have, whether it's Catholic or Orthodox or Protestant or Muslim or Hindu or atheist, when reading something from an academic point of view, you may either agree or disagree with it depending on its world view - and at that point, if you disagree, either continue stubbornly disagreeing because you're standing on two different foundations or accept (for the time being and for the sake of getting something out of it) the writing's view. Quote:
If there is a eucatastrophe - good. That means it's there, and deal with it. No eucatastrophe - good. That means - guess what? - you have to deal with it too. I think that nothing defines an author's stories more than his stories do. That might sound stupid, but there's a point. Religion(s), personal experiences, ideals, and etc. may influence an author and his writing, and may even to some extent define him, but only his writing defines his writing. You can say that there is eucatastrophe in Tolkien - but you can't say that Tolkien is eucatastrophe. That just wouldn't be true, like with the example of COH that you bring up. So can you put together all of Tolkien's works and define them? Not if you want to measure how much Tolkien believed in eucatastrophies himself. What he believed in has an affect, but does not define the product. The eucatastrophe is just an example, but this works for any aspect of any work. I think it's not right to define all the works of an author, especially someone who wrote as diversely as Tolkien, with one term or concept, because in most cases it will not be wholly true. The works are fact, within the works. You cannot disagree with fact. And the best way to explain such a complicated "fact" is to, well, say it. Quote:
Tolkien's works cannot be defined as Christian, just like they cannot be defined as eucatastrophic. They have a Christian influence - certainly. But Christianity is not the only influence. So while Tolkien's works are not, as you put it, explicitly Christian, there are elements of Christianily in them. An influence doesn't have to show 100% in order for it to be present. Huh, seems like I failed epicly to be concise.
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11-21-2012, 07:36 PM | #13 | |
Shade of Carn Dûm
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I think this makes the meaning stronger and clearer. My deepest apologies if I have misunderstood your meaning. You are an astounding writer and may have one of the clearest minds I have ever encountered. In Letter 26 Tolkien writes: But I know only too sadly from efforts to find anything to read even with an ‘on demand’ subscription at a library that my taste is not normal. I read ‘Voyage to Arcturus’ with avidity – the most comparable work, though it is both more powerful and more mythical (and less rational, and also less of a story – no one could read it merely as a thriller and without interest in philosophy religion and morals).Yet this book is profoundly opposed to Tolkien’s own philosophy as it emerges in his writing. The author David Lindsey presents in this book the idea that Pain alone is true and that all appearances of delight and happiness are only a delusion fostered by the deluder Crystalman. Tolkien’s friend C. S. Lewis was also overwhelmed by the book, but also said the book was “on the borderline of the diabolical [and] so manichean as to be almost satanic”. An author whom Tolkien ought to have liked by most criteria was George MacDonald. And so he did at one time. But when rereading some of his fantasy later in life Tolkien found the man intolerable and horribly preachy. Tolkien also did not much like the writing of his fellow Inkling Charles Williams and very much disliked C. S. Lewis’ Narnia books. The moral, such as it is, is that one likes what one likes. |
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11-22-2012, 03:53 AM | #14 |
Shade of Carn Dûm
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Well if people read it with a kind of religious filter, they're idiots.
He didn't write the books as a religious kind of text, but to 'create a mythology' for the modern world. We know he was dissatisfied with the Aurthurian legends, etc. And for the Hobbit; intended as a book for children. Anything else for either book is pure intellectual dishonesty.
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11-22-2012, 09:32 AM | #15 | |
Pile O'Bones
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I mean in Tokien's own words, The Lord of the Rings is, "a fundamentally religious and Catholic work." It's just not an allegory. |
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11-22-2012, 11:28 AM | #16 | ||
Itinerant Songster
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As to abuses committed by a culture, you must admit that the modern is not pure as the driven snow in comparison to the medieval. If anything, it's worse: millions of decent citizens murdered for the sake of political ideology, for example. No matter how you cut it, orcs will behave like orcs, whether they look like one or not. Quote:
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11-24-2012, 12:58 AM | #17 | |
Shade of Carn Dûm
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A distinction he and I understand, but you apparently don't.
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11-24-2012, 10:35 AM | #18 | |
Pile O'Bones
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Further I suggest you refer to the man himself who is quite clear that the Lord of the Rings is a 'fundamentally religious and Catholic work.' It is true Tolkien did not set out to write a 'Religious text,' however interpreting the Lord of the Rings without invoking Christian/Catholic ideals and mythos will never achieve an accurate result. |
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11-24-2012, 11:50 PM | #19 | ||||||||||
Shade of Carn Dûm
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Tolkien also states in Letter 142 (emphasis mine): The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like ‘religion’ to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.See also in Letter 146: So while God (Eru) was a datum of good Númenórean philosophy, and a prime fact in their conception of history. He had at the time of the War of the Ring no worship and no hallowed place. And that kind of negative truth was characteristic of the West, and all the area under Númenórean influence: the refusal to worship any ‘creature’, and above all no ‘dark lord′ or satanic demon, Sauron, or any other, was almost as far as they got. They had (I imagine) no petitionary prayers to God; but preserved the vestige of thanksgiving.First, Tolkien places his stories in a world which is largely secular in which prayer and worship is largely unknown to the Men of whom he treats, and unknown to the Hobbits. From Letter 165: I am in any case myself a Christian; but the ‘Third Age′ was not a Christian world.In short his work may be a Roman Catholic and religious as it is possible to be in a fictional place and time before Jesus was even born and not even Judaism existed and where religion itself is represented as almost unknown. There is a single all-powerful God, but he is represented as very distant from the affairs of the world at that time. That is, the work is in reality not very Roman Catholic or religious beyond the working out of the plot in this pre-Christian time, and even there much that Tolkien put in that represented his own understanding of Roman Catholicism was common morality and not specifically Christian. I am very tired of commentators attempting to bring in Christianity where one sees only common morality, or uncommon morality, which need not be especially Christian. American commentators especially bring in a hatred of anything Muslim. Roman Catholic commentators bring in Galadriel, an Elvish wife and mother of a daughter, as though she were a symbol of the Virgin Mary. Tolkien writes in Letter 320: I was particularly interested in your remarks about Galadriel. .... I think it is true that I owe much of this character to Christian and Catholic teaching and imagination about Mary, but actually Galadriel was a penitent: in her youth a leader in the rebellion against the Valar (the angelic guardians). At the end of the First Age she proudly refused forgiveness or permission to return. She was pardoned because of her resistance to the final and overwhelming temptation to take the Ring for herself.Tolkien admits that probably some of Galadriel comes from Roman Catholic teaching about the Virigin Mary, but that, on the whole, she is quite different. Quote:
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Resurrected figures who are not related to Jesus appear in medieval tales and folk tales and even in the Christian Bible. For example, in the Finnish Kalevala the hero Lemminkäinen is killed when he attempts to slay the black swan of Tuoenela, the river of death. His body is ripped into eight pieces and thrown into the river. Lemminkäinen’s mother rakes up the body, puts it back together, and brings him back to life using nectar from heaven obtained through a bee. The Welsh romance of Peredur, which we know Tolkien studied, brings in the three sons of the King of Suffering who each day are slain by a monster known as an Addanc but are resurrected in the evening by magic baths in which their corpses are placed by their three lady loves. The Grimm’s fairy tale “The Juniper Tree″, which Tolkien liked very, very much, has its protagonist slain near the beginning but brought back to life at the end. The so-called Chistianity in The Lord of the Rings is more subtle than much Christian interpretation which is nonsense. Christ-figures I see as such nonsense. Quote:
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Where does either Tolkien or Lewis clearly state that they would rather have lived in medieval times? Quote:
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11-25-2012, 12:03 AM | #20 | ||||||||||
Shade of Carn Dûm
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Tolkien also states in Letter 142 (emphasis mine): The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like ‘religion’ to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.See also in Letter 146: So while God (Eru) was a datum of good Númenórean philosophy, and a prime fact in their conception of history. He had at the time of the War of the Ring no worship and no hallowed place. And that kind of negative truth was characteristic of the West, and all the area under Númenórean influence: the refusal to worship any ‘creature’, and above all no ‘dark lord′ or satanic demon, Sauron, or any other, was almost as far as they got. They had (I imagine) no petitionary prayers to God; but preserved the vestige of thanksgiving.First, Tolkien places his stories in a world which is largely secular in which prayer and worship is largely unknown to the Men of whom he treats, and unknown to the Hobbits (except for grace at meals as a tradition in Gondor and one case where Men cry out for the Valar to cause an elephant to swerve). From Letter 165: I am in any case myself a Christian; but the ‘Third Age′ was not a Christian world.In short his work may be a Roman Catholic and religious as it is possible to be in a fictional place and time before Jesus was even born and not even Judaism existed and where religion itself is represented as almost unknown. There is a single all-powerful God, but he is represented as very distant from the affairs of the world at that time. That is, the work is in reality not very Roman Catholic or religious beyond the working out of the plot in this pre-Christian time, and even there much that Tolkien put in that represented his own understanding of Roman Catholicism was common morality and not specifically Christian. I am very tired of commentators attempting to bring in Christianity where one sees only common morality, or uncommon morality, which need not be especially Christian. American commentators especially bring in a hatred of anything Muslim. Roman Catholic commentators bring in Galadriel, an Elvish wife and mother of a daughter, as though she were a symbol of the Virgin Mary. Tolkien writes in Letter 320: I was particularly interested in your remarks about Galadriel. .... I think it is true that I owe much of this character to Christian and Catholic teaching and imagination about Mary, but actually Galadriel was a penitent: in her youth a leader in the rebellion against the Valar (the angelic guardians). At the end of the First Age she proudly refused forgiveness or permission to return. She was pardoned because of her resistance to the final and overwhelming temptation to take the Ring for herself.Tolkien admits that probably some of Galadriel comes from Roman Catholic teaching about the Virigin Mary, but that, on the whole, she is quite different. She is very definitely not the Virgin Mary. Quote:
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Resurrected figures who are not related to Jesus appear in medieval tales and folk tales and even in the Christian Bible. For example, in the Finnish Kalevala the hero Lemminkäinen is killed when he attempts to slay the black swan of Tuoenela, the river of death. His body is ripped into eight pieces and thrown into the river. Lemminkäinen’s mother rakes up the body, puts it back together, and brings him back to life using nectar from heaven obtained through a bee. The Welsh romance of Peredur, which we know Tolkien studied, brings in the three sons of the King of Suffering who each day are slain by a monster known as an Addanc but are resurrected in the evening by magic baths in which their corpses are placed by their three lady loves. The Grimm’s fairy tale “The Juniper Tree″, which Tolkien liked very, very much, has its protagonist slain near the beginning but brought back to life at the end. The so-called Christianity in The Lord of the Rings is more subtle than much Christian interpretation which is nonsense. Christ-figures I see as such nonsense. Quote:
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Where does either Tolkien or Lewis clearly state that they would rather have lived in medieval times? Quote:
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11-25-2012, 08:31 AM | #21 |
Itinerant Songster
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No thanks, Jallanite. I'm not involved in this thread to win a debate. I'm interested in an exchange ideas, hoping to learn something. Let me know when you're interested in that.
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11-25-2012, 08:56 AM | #22 | ||||||
Pile O'Bones
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Now onto this point: Symbolism. I rest my case. Quote:
By this I do not mean it is an alternate universe 'version' of Christianity, but rather that 'good', 'bad' and the nature of truth are defined along very Christian lines. Quote:
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You then use the Galadriel/Virgin Mary example. I don't find this very interesting. The truth is as the author states, I don't see why this requires further discussion. Those attempting to read beyond this explicit explanation, are on a futile quest, we can all agree. Quote:
I roughly explained their Christ-natures as well, why not read what I wrote? Of course Tolkien would never write a figure as an allegory of Christ. You clearly struggle to understand the Christ figure concept. Moses, for example, is considered a Christ figure. Yet he wasn't crucified, didn't get into the promised land and wasn't always that popular with the almighty. As for Beren and Luthien - not everyone is a Christ figure. I don't believe I claimed: everyone in Tolkien's work is a Christ figure. I would also argue their resurrection is fundamentally different from that of Gandalf. Gandalf's is due to the direct intervention of Eru; B and L are via the limited intervention of the Valar. Quote:
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11-25-2012, 11:53 AM | #23 | ||||
Shade of Carn Dûm
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11-25-2012, 02:40 PM | #24 | |||
Gruesome Spectre
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Tolkien's Arda is without doubt theistic, as many here have noted, but in order to be Christian, there must be a parallel to Jesus Christ. There isn't one, and the Gandalf analogy doesn't hold up. Why not? For one, Gandalf's sacrifice wasn't necessarily intended to be an act he alone could achieve. Since all the Istari had the same mission, any of them would have been capable of sacrificing their physical bodies in a free act of will to safeguard allies, or in general support of the struggle against Sauron. When it came to it, Gandalf was the one presented with both the situation and the choice. Whether that was "chance" (Eru's will) or not (I say it was), there is no evidence that Gandalf himself knew ahead of time that he would be called on to make that sacrifice. Christ on the other hand, knew what was required of him in that respect. I have also seen Eärendil put forward as Arda's Christ, but that won't work either. Eärendil apparently did have some foreknowledge of his fate, though: Quote:
And in a discussion of Eärendil's fate among the Valar: Quote:
If one can't see Jesus in Gandalf or Eärendil, I can think of no nearer alternative in the books. And how can the works be Christian, without Christ?
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11-25-2012, 02:52 PM | #25 |
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
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There are types of Christ in LOTR, rather than an actual Christ figure. Why would the absence of the latter stop it from being a Christian work? I've heard "Beowulf" described as a very Christian work in which Christ is never named.
Tolkien said in one of his letters that he would not dare to write more directly about God or Christ than he had done, and he disliked allegory, so there is no equivalent, say, of Simon in "Lord of the Flies" or Aslan in the Narnia books. But I don't think that stops it from being a Christian work, just because it is "absorbed into the symbolism" rather than being more overt.
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11-25-2012, 07:50 PM | #26 | |||
Pile O'Bones
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I speak of the fundamental truths of the universe, the nature of good and evil, it's ultimate theoligical underpinnings, the nature of 'humanity' so on and so forth. Quote:
Ditto Earendil. Quote:
My argument is that you have at least 3 Christ figures ie characters who share some significant parellels with Christ. I think we are disagreeing over terminology. Let me restate to close: Christ figures or pre-figures are not identical parallel copies. For example Superman is considered a modern Christ figure. |
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11-25-2012, 08:20 PM | #27 |
Itinerant Songster
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As to Christ-figures, one may run the risk of spreading one's net so wide that many things one does not want, gets caught in it. For example, though Superman may be seen as a Christ-figure, he makes a better figure of "the hero with a thousand faces".
I do understand that a Christ figure need not die and be raised and ascend to the heavens to be one, but there may be other types that Gandalf fits better, such as an incarnate angel ... which Tolkien indeed says he is. I do agree that there are clearly Christian themes and aspects in LotR which separate it from other modern myths aka Star Trek and Star Wars. I think it might be apt to point out that Harry Potter is more of a Christ-figure than any character in LotR or any of the Tolkien mythos. |
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Shade of Carn Dûm
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Is this ignoring similarities in religious teaching between religions just religious bigotry? Quote:
Rhod the Red has given this thread some excellent quotations which include one where Tolkien contrasts “the freedom of the reader” with “the purposed domination of the author”. Quote:
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I am not struggling at all. Why do you imagine I am? Quote:
Christ figures may be recognized by those who wish to recognize them even in non-Christian works. They don’t indicate anything unless the author deliberately makes a parallel to Christ as Thomas Mann does. Quote:
Christ figures need not be exactly like Christ as you seem to expect and may be found if one looks for them in non-Christian works as well as Christian works. But usually commentators use terms like dying god over Christ figure when it is the death of a god which is being considered. A god who comes back to life used to be commonly called a corn king, when James Frazer’s The Golden Bough was still popular. Or what some might well call a Christ figure others may call a teacher or sage. Christianity in The Lord of the Rings is more subtle than identifying an exact or even an approximate Christ figure. It is that the world as presented follows Christian rules. In which case, if Christianity is true, then the rules it follows, outside of the obvious fantasy elements, must also be true. If Christian worldview is not true, well, it still makes for a good story, especially when set in a supposed time in which religion is almost non-existent but morality is congruent with Christian morality (and with similar pagan teaching of course). Tolkien thought that readers would perhaps realize that The Lord of the Rings was written by a Christian and was surprised when some even deduced it was written by a Roman Catholic. What these readers spotted was Christian and Roman Catholic influences on Tolkien’s writings. That alone would not prove that Tolkien was a Roman Catholic. The same has been spotted in the writings of James Joyce who was once a Roman Catholic and possibly still was. The Christianity of The Lord of the Rings is something like the Christianity of C. S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces set long before the birth of Christ in which all the characters are pagans and remain pagans. But Lewis saw the philosophy that underlay this book as Christian. Quote:
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And I have listed many more. Even in the Bible there are Jeremiah and other prophets. I am at a loss why characters who in some way parallel Jesus make any work a Christian work. |
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11-25-2012, 09:46 PM | #29 | ||
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Perhaps there needs to be a reminder that there is no need for passive-aggressive inflammatory language towards groups of people, and certainly no need to be calling people idiots. There seems to be a new inclination on here to rudely resort to rhetoric and ad hominen attacks in the effort of winning a debate. It's a discussion forum, welcoming a variety of ages, background, beliefs...etc, just please keep that in mind.
As far as this thread, if I may Draugohtar, get the points you have been trying to bring up. I for one get annoyed at commentators who insist in a hardline Christian/Catholic reading of what Tolkien "must have said/meant." However, I also get annoyed at the opposite in commentators who insist in a firm denial of no religious worldview exists in Tolkien's writing. Or put more simply by G55's post, if someone wants to read a Christian book, read the Bible. If you want to read a Tolkien book, read Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit...etc. If it contains Christian elements you'll have to deal with that in whatever way fits you, but can you really deny it exists? If it doesn't contain Christian beliefs, you'll have to deal with that too. Now, from what I understand of Catholic belief is there is Truth, which is sort of a universtal truth, it can be known and found, acknowledged as Truth exists. Universal truths go beyond Catholicism, in the sense it exists in all manners of religion and faith...such as loyalty, courage, humility, perserverence...and many more. These are all virtues, for the fact these get universally accepted as Truth. These need to be separated from specific Catholic/Christian/Insert any religious beliefs that only apply to the specific religion. And in Christian teaching, what is good, then is good. What I mean here is, there are virtues, these are good...truths that exists. However, simply because Evil can use these virtues, does not change the nature and fact of virtues being good. I find that this fits very well with at least The Lord of the Rings. If we look at what Tolkien says about Sauron: Quote:
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Fenris Penguin
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11-26-2012, 12:36 AM | #30 | |
Shade of Carn Dûm
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Declaring there is NO hidden message. Not even 'partially Catholic'. NO message at all. And emphasies his annoyance with literary incapacity to distinct allegory from application & reader insistence to see what the author doesn't intend.
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11-26-2012, 04:34 AM | #31 |
Princess of Skwerlz
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Moderator's note
Please refrain from personal comments on members with differing viewpoints. In the past, very few threads that address the question of religion as related to Tolkien's works have managed to escape closure, because the tone grew inflammatory.
This is a discussion forum, not a place for convincing others that you are right. Please allow each participant the courtesy that you would like to receive yourself. Because the internet is a written medium, words can sound harsher than you intend them to, so I ask you to write politely and address only the issues, not the persons. There is no need to repeat your views over and over again in the hope that all others will acknowledge them as superior. Post what you think, give reasons for that, and then step off your soapbox and read what others have to say. You just might learn something! At the very least, you will think about something new, and that is good for your brain.
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11-26-2012, 09:56 AM | #32 |
Cryptic Aura
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Thanks to Boro and our great moderator Estelyn for the reminders about civility and courtesy.
I'd like to add a few general comments about using a writer's letters as evidence in an argument. Some years ago, I wickedly decided to begin a campaign in favour of the reader (rather than the writer or the text) because of how Tolkien's letters were viewed as definitive writ by some of my friends here. They aren't. (Yes, Aiwendil, I come clean here about my philosophical perspective.) A few points about letters: Letters are a personal and private communication between two or a few more people. When we read them, we are sneaking a look into something that was never intended to be read by others (even if some authors write with an eye to posterity). We are, essentially, spying or stalking on the writer and have to remember that we are not part of that interpersonal relationship, howevermuch it might seem we are kindred. Letters are based on the relationship between the people involved; their context extends beyond the letter itself into the entire history of that relationship. They will of course include business aspects of the relationship if that is significant, but letters remain very different from public essays or academic reports and critical articles. Those forms of writings will address at length an issue or problem and will represent a writer's declared wish to make a public statement about the subject. But letters are a private communication which we are violating. All human language varies depending upon its audience. The way teenagers speak with (or to!) parents differs from the way they speak with each other. The way adults speak with their bosses differs from the way they speak with co-workers. Linguistic research shows differences in the patterns of male and female speech. The language of the deaf community is utterly, utterly different from the language of the hearing community. Letters, although written language, still partake of this essence of spoken language. Anyone who has read the letters of Charlotte Bronte, for instance, has been struck by how she varies her voice according to her audience. And she isn't the only author who does so. Furthermore, writers are not in fact infallible even about their own work. Their memories, like all human memories, are selective and can be mistaken about events. They may also be reticent about very personal details of their imaginative life. They may even change their mind, knowingly and unknowingly. And even more than people who do not have highly developed linguistic skills, writers manipulate language for effect as well as for fact. Tolkien's letters are selected letters, not collected letters. We don't know the content, style, and form of letters that were not included in the book we now have and we don't know what the principles for selection were, for every letter that was included. And we don't know what was excluded. What this all means is that any statement Tolkien makes in a letter needs to be examined in terms of the letter's audience and purpose in writing. Such a statement needs to be compared to other statements on the same topic, if any can be found. The context needs to be considered before the statement can be used as an all-encompassing piece of evidence for said fact. Most often (not just here, but in many discussions) two of Tolkien's comments are particularly used without this kind of careful contextualisation: his comment about creating a mythology and his comment about an essential Catholic frame of mind. Tolkien himself later in life came to recognise that his early enthusiasm for creating a national mythology was a youthful enterprise that went on to take a different form. His comment about the Catholic nature of his universe was written to a Catholic friend (a priest, if I remember correctly--I don't have the letters at hand). I cannot recall if that particular expression and claim is made anywhere else in Tolkien's letters; I don't think it is. Was he simply trying to reassure someone who had qualms about creating a fantasy world or was he deliberately laying out a precise blueprint for his secondary world? I've spoken about this letter with a Downer who is deeply and profoundly a sincere Catholic and he doesn't think this particular letter can be taken as evidence of the fundamental Catholic nature of Middle-earth, because the evidence does not exist solidly elsewhere to substantiate the claim as a major tenet of the work. On the other hand, Tolkien's comments about the philological nature of his writing is something that can be extensively substantiated and is probably for that reason closer to his guiding ethos. Letters can be helpful but they aren't jurisprudence; they can't provide legalistic evidence, however much we would like to use them that way. They need interpretation as much, if not more so, than a fictional text. If we grab on to a comment or claim because it feeds our wish for interpreting the text a certain way, then we are following a readerly form of interpretation for a text, creating our own personal version of the text. There is a great deal in Tolkien's work that is not explicitly Christian. He draws from many sources and to focus on one to the exclusion of others is to deny his own unique creative crucible. Or, in his words, his leaf mold.
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I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. Last edited by Bêthberry; 11-26-2012 at 09:59 AM. |
11-26-2012, 01:06 PM | #33 | ||||
Laconic Loreman
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This has been a very good compilation of essays talking about Tolkien's "Catholic Imagination."
http://tolkienandchristianity.blogsp...r-tolkien.html This is not a statement that I agree with all of these authors, but I still maintain Tolkien's religious beliefs played an integral part in writing his "myth." Mind you a part, not the whole, possibly not even the most important influence, but an influence nonetheless. I have not read all of these essays, and personally some of them like Joseph Pearce's "Why Tolkien says The Lord of the Rings is Catholic" seems to be reaching too far for my own tastes. A lot also tend to latch onto Tolkien's Letter stating it is "a fundamentally Catholic work." However, Clyde Kilby's "Meeting Professor Tolkien" and David Mills' essay about Divine Providence were illuminating and bring up if nothing else an interesting, thoughtful argument. And in my opinion, it's been a valuable set of links to give a comprehensive look to the Catholic interpretation of Tolkien's writing. Quote:
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This again doesn't mean if someone sees the religious influence in Tolkien's writing that they are arguing "Tolkien is a lying liar who lied about disliking allegory." It's a simple acknowledgement that his beliefs influenced his writing, just as his love for Anglo-Saxon myth, or Norse, or any other experience you want to plug in. Much tends to be made by the Letter to Father Murray: Quote:
I think the trickier part is understanding, as Tolkien also admits, there is much of his story that escaped him, or he forgot, because much had been written decades before writing all these letters responding to family, friends, and fans. Also, Tolkien becomes a conscious commentator and critic, and not the writer who did write in the "unconscious." However, there is no reason that Tolkien would have to be purposefully deceptive to anyone, whether it be to his variety of readers, or to a single correspondent. Now there may be unintentional misleading if Tolkien mis-remembered something he had previously written, but he's honest about that too! So, really, when reading Letters I don't see any reason to think Tolkien was not being upfront and honest in his responses. You've even pointed out to me before where he did not send a certain letter about the possibility of orc redemption because he seemed to be "taking himself too importantly." My point here is, if the context and audience is known, and seeing no reason why Tolkien would purposefully deceive the recipients of his letters, then there can still be value in them beyond individual curiosity in wanting to know everyone's business. So, with Letter 142 to Tolkien's Catholic friend, he does say it is a "fundamentally religious and Catholic work" at first when he was unconsciously writing, but in consciously revising he only re-affirmed and stuck to whatever religious influences were present when writing it. This does not mean, as some of the authors in the link I provided at the start of this post are correct in their interpretations, as some do reach too far into what I would define as allegory. And thus it assumes Tolkien was deliberately lying when he consistently stated a dislike for allegory. However, to take the rest of that quote to mean all religion and Catholic thought was completely excised and eviscerated out of the story, is also misleading. Quite the opposite, it's directly in both his writing process and the revision process it was a fundamentally religious work. What he says was not put in, or what he did end up cutting out is any direct reference to established real world 'religion' in terms of their cults or practices. Instead the religious influeced is "absorbed in the story and the symbolism." I actually like Tolkien's word choice of "absorbed" here since it implies the religious influence is a part of the story. Not the whole, maybe not even the most important part, but a part nonetheless. And that is, in my opinion, different from allegory.
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11-26-2012, 05:30 PM | #34 | |
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
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Can I just say one thing? Some Roman Catholic commentators will stress a religious component. Other Roman Catholics, like many people in my father's family, think that people read too much Catholic belief into the books. So, can we stop acting like all Catholics, all Americans, all whatever believe the same thing? Even within groups, the people might disagree, and that's good.
Oh, and the Roman Catholic Church Tolkien grew up in would have been different from the one that exists now. There has been quite a bit of new Canon and clarification on the old in the past half a century or so. So, I'm not even sure we can try and make it fit into current Catholicism, though they're similar. I'm not schooled enough in the differences to say how that would fit in with the books. Just a thought to throw out there. Quote:
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11-26-2012, 06:56 PM | #35 | ||
Pile O'Bones
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 23
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On this point I'd like to point out that there have only been peripheral alterations to Catholic belief in the past centuries. More a case of tinkering at the edges, further all Catholics are bound to believe the teaching of the Magisterium of the Church. Put simply if Tolkien wandered into Mass tomorrow, he might be annoyed that it's not in latin, but otherwise it would all be 100% familiar. Quote:
P.S. On the Beren and Luthien issue earlier, the 'Harrowing of Hell' seems a reach to me, given that the Harrowing refers to Sheol, as opposed to the 'other place.' Further I'm not clear on how this achieved any sort of redemption, seeing as it was Earendil all those years later who actually sought forgiveness. In the LOTR I content the Christ-figures (as literary allusion) all play a part in redemption. Again though, no one has to believe this, it's simply my own opinion. |
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11-26-2012, 08:12 PM | #36 |
Shade of Carn Dûm
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Toronto
Posts: 479
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Bêthberry and Boromir88 have both given excellent posts, as is usual for both (and also Lady Brooke).
I personally do recognize that Tolkien in his letters often did not provide his full opinion on many topics and sometimes changed his opinion over the years. I also recognize that Tolkien put many of his likes into The Lord of the Rings, including some of his religious beliefs, but not all of them. For his story supposedly takes place before Jesus (or Mary, his mother) ever existed. Also, unlike John Milton in Paradise Lost, Tolkien makes no mention anywhere of the Trinity, and refers to the single God as Eru ‘the One’ in his tales, presumably because he fictionalized the tales as records from long ago before Christianity existed, and before any known religion imagined any chief god to be three-in-one, at least so far as I know. The Greek goddess Hecate was sometimes three-in-one. Much Roman Catholic and basic Christian belief does not appear because, as Tolkien often indicates in Letters, he designed his imaginary prehistoric civilization in a particular way, I suspect in part so that he might avoid many religious issues. Originally in making the Earth flat he may have intended to clearly indicate that this was only fantasy because Christians in general, though not always, had accepted a spherical Earth as they did in his own day. The Lord of the Rings is fantasy tale involving Elves, Dwarves, and Hobbits, none of whom existed according to general belief. There is no reason to think from anything Tolkien wrote that in real life he thought they had ever existed either. The tale shows a totally imaginary past to be viewed for pure enjoyment. Quite naturally Tolkien based the morality in the book on his own feelings for what was moral which is mostly shared, at least in word if not in deed, by non-Roman Catholics and non-Christians. He avoided dealing with controversial subjects. For example, capital punishment comes up only in a personal opinion by Gandalf that Bilbo was right to spare Gollum when he could have killed him. The law codes of Gondor and the Shire supposedly derive from old Númenórean law codes which largely derive from Elvish laws which derive directly from the teaching of the Valar. But Tolkien only provides a few glimpses of these laws. |
11-26-2012, 08:36 PM | #37 | ||
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
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I'm not saying Tolkien would feel the same way, I am just pointing out that depending on the way people feel about it, the Roman Catholic Church can be viewed as having gone significant changes since he was alive. This is something that I personally would always take into account when trying to determine a degree of Catholic belief into his books, that the beliefs he had are not necessary the same ones as the current Church or any given contemporary Roman Catholic, as well as the difference in time periods and how any given religion would be viewed. No one has to agree with the above, but there are people that feel that way. And broad sweeping generalizations rarely do much good. *shrug* Personally, I'd say that Tolkien's good characters have moral codes and beliefs that Tolkien felt were important, which were deeply inspired his own religious beliefs and therefore his Catholicism. However, the characters themselves are not bound to follow the entire teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, nor do I believe that Tolkien directly wrote any character that was supposed to be a Christ figure, the Virgin Mary, or any other important religious figure. Of course, later in life, Tolkien could have seen parallels between them and characters, as can we. But I doubt it was an intentional parallel, as seen by the many different characters that are proposed as the Christ figure. ...part of that might be that direct religious parallels make me uncomfortable. I haven't read the Chronicles of Narnia since I realized all the parallels. Quote:
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11-26-2012, 11:32 PM | #38 |
Haunting Spirit
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 95
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Just to be clear, I did not start this thread with an intent to discuss the merits of religious belief. I made my own perspective clear because I wanted to be up-front about where I was coming from, and because this thread is in part about how our personally-held ideologies inform our reading.
Morthoron's post regarding my initial post was disingenuous, not to mention hysterical. That I have consistently posted on several themes in the past (Debates regarding The Children of Hurin, for example, or antagonistic critiques of Tolkien) should in no way invalidate my right to continue posting on the same or similar themes. I'm interested in morality in fiction and how writers instantiate moral perspectives in their fiction. I've often found that CoH is an interesting vehicle through which to discuss Tolkien's morality, his attitude toward religion, divine providence and other themes. I'm merely interested, not "obsessive". Furthermore, I'm not arguing, as some seem to think, that Tolkien's work IS a Christian text, merely that some commentators on Tolkien have argued that in their monographs (see Joseph Pearce, for example). My motivation for making this thread was to ask why that might be the case. My "list" of Christian beliefs and dogmas should presented in the first post should not be interpreted as exhaustive. As I explained there, not all Christians will believe all those propositions, some will believe more 'metaphorical' variants (e.g. that Adam and Eve didn't literally exist) and others might not believe any. I reiterate: the point was just to establish a baseline: many Christians have believed some of these propositions. The most important of those relates specifically to Jesus, and his supposed mission to redeem humanity. If Christian commentators argue that Tolkien's work is, at its core, a Christian work, then surely it should bear some resemblance to this most central Christian story. Is Eru a lawgiver, or merely a desitic God? If so how does that impact on, for example, Joseph Pearce's argument that takes Tolkien's Catholic credentials very seriously. Are Tolkien's characters bound by an externally derived moral code, or do they, as Brian Rosebury argues, merely conform to a kind of secular "moral consensus" which most of Tolkien's readers will agree on (Tolkien: A Cultural Phenomenon: 147)? Does "sin" exist in Middle-earth, and do its denizens therefore require atonement on the Christain sort? I would have thought that these are not negligible or inappropriate questions to ask, given that so many writers have lauded Tolkien's Christian credentials. Last edited by tumhalad2; 11-26-2012 at 11:35 PM. |
11-27-2012, 09:32 AM | #39 | |
Curmudgeonly Wordwraith
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Ensconced in curmudgeonly pursuits
Posts: 2,509
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You've made a career here of posting disparaging reviews of Tolkien's work, and I am being disingenuous? That, my friend, is humorous, if only in a pathetically ironic manner. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt in using the term "obsessive", because you perhaps did not see the pattern you had set. As you readily admit to this pattern as a planned and permanent avocation, then I withdraw the word "obsessive" and will, in future, use an altogether more appropriate epithet. I am not referring to just a few posts in which you criticize Tolkien's work in a pejorative manner, I am talking about almost the entire corpus of the threads you've started. This blatant and seemingly endless reiteration of contempt is readily discernible to anyone who reviews your posting history. It is also ironic that someone who clearly states "I not only disbelieve in any god, I also find many forms of theism morally objectionable", should dwell on Christian morality in the works of an avowed and ardent Catholic like Tolkien. You profess to love his literature, yet you make every effort to denigrate, belittle, undermine and obfuscate it. So who, then, is being disingenuous?
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11-27-2012, 08:56 PM | #40 | ||
Blossom of Dwimordene
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: The realm of forgotten words
Posts: 10,401
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Personally, I would not say that Tolkien's work is Christian (see post 12 of this thread for my explanation). At any rate, it cannot be defined as "Christian" because it is not only Christian. However, for some people "most" is enough and "all" is not a requirement, so they have no problem with this. With the same success one can call The Sil and COH "Norse". There are certainly many parallels and similarities - but the problem is that they are still not 100% Norse. You can't write 100% Norse mythology unless you are creating the Norse mythology, and living it, and etc. Tolkien created Tolkien mythology; hence, he wrote Tolkien. You can't write with only one influence; there will always be others that creep up, even subconsciously. Quote:
Religious stories / mythology are but the outside walls of what this people believes in and holds in value. Since before I knew how to read myself, I was fascinated with Greek mythology. It used to be just names and fun stories. But after a few more years of reading and thinking I saw that a story that it merely "fun" because of its plot also gives insight into the culture of these people, into their mentality, customs, beliefs, values, prejudices, and etc. Jesus, Mary, Adam, Eve, and etc are only the plot. It may or may not be mirrored in Tolkien's work, depending on how you perceive it yourself. But the message they carry is that of peace, wisdom, charity, humility, patience, and etc. I don't think you can deny that at least one of these appears in Tolkien's work.
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