Skip to main content

religion - Is Eru intended as a literal representation of the Christian God?



Given that ...




  • Tolkien is on record as saying he envisioned Middle-Earth as being a literal precusor to modern day earth "in a different stage of imagination".




  • As a Christian, a major theme of his legendarium is faith itself, the trust between the creator and the created.




  • Tolkien was close friends with fellow Christian C.S. Lewis, who chose to put a literal representation of Jesus into his Narnia series.





... it made me wonder whether Tolkien intended any literal paralells between Eru and the Christian God?


If not, it would seem that by situating his stories in the real world, but creating an entirely fake deity, he might have been in danger of breaking the first commandment. Did he leave any record as to his feelings on this matter?


(References from interviews, letters or literary criticism rather than speculation, please.)



Answer




"The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. ” Letter to Robert Murray, S.J., 2 December 1953



By this, Tolkien meant that it was not meant to be a Christian allegory like Narnia (although technically Aslan was similarly meant to be "just" Jesus in an alternate universe and not an allegory for same, but much of the surrounding story was an allegory for C.S. Lewis' Christian apologetics, and Tolkien didn't care for that.)



But rather that he deliberately chose not to add in anything that would conflict, "metaphysically" with his Catholic beliefs about the nature of evil, the soul, creation etc.


Thus, if there is to be a Creator God, it had to be the same God that Tolkien believed in, with the author only as Sub-creator, inspired by the "reality" of creation in "real life" and thus inspired by the same source. (with the goal also of being realistic and not "alien" to the reader)


To that end, he made sure that the Valar were not separate deities but were similarly inspired, i.e. Sub-creators of their own, (c.f. the answer I gave here about Eru's relationship to the Ainur) and Tolkien created the concept of Mythopoeia to explain how he felt story-telling was the same way.


Melkor wanted to be a demi-urge and create his own separate realms uninspired by his own creator, which Tolkien and other Catholics would see as pride and rejecting the beauty of creation, conversely William Blake would have agreed but thought was a good thing.1


In short, a very broad application of "write what you know".


He also left out all references to religion in-universe precisely because he didn't want it to conflict with his own (or the reader's) thoughts on the matter, since it wasn't meant to be an alien world... Tolkien was a lot more broad in imagining, say, the fate of Elves and Dwarves after death and such, since they were mythical beings.


But he really fretted over stuff like whether Eru could allow inherently evil beings to exist, that conflicted with his theology etc. So basically unlike the movies where "it's just a story so let's pretend everyone's pure good or pure evil" Tolkien wanted to accurately reflect reality as he saw it.


On Edit: It helps that Tolkien was a Catholic as they're pretty syncretistic when it comes to associating prehistoric religious belief with "innocent belief" in Angels etc, so he could just fold it into his legendarium. The Jesuits often identified other creator gods with the Catholic God... And the Old Testament can get pretty out there too when it comes to pantheons of angelic beings.


1 William Blake probably would have sided with Melkor and the fallen angels. Similarly Fëanor rebelled against (the) God(s) in trying to "own" the light of creation.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

harry potter - Did Dolores Umbridge Have Any Association with Voldemort (or Death Eaters) before His Return?

I noticed that Dolores Umbridge was born during the first Wizarding War, so it's very likely she wasn't a Death Eater then (but she is pretty evil -- who knows?). After that Voldemort was not around in a way that could affect many people, and most wouldn't know he was planning to rise again. During that time, and up through Voldemort's return (in Goblet of Fire ), did Umbridge have any connection with the Death Eaters or with Voldemort? Was she doing what she did on her own, or was it because of an association with Voldemort or his allies? Answer Dolores Umbridge was definitely not a good person. However, as Sirius points out, "the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters". Remember that he also says that he doesn't believe Umbridge to be a Death Eater, but that she's evil enough (or something like that). I think there are two strong reasons to believe that: Umbridge was proud to do everything according to the law, except when she trie...
Post a Comment
Read more

aliens - Interstellar Zoo story

I vaguely remember this story from my childhood: it was about an interstellar zoo that came to Earth with lots of bizarre and unusual species, and humans would file through and gape at all the crazy looking creatures from other planets. The twist came at the end when the perspective shifted to the other side of the bars and we discovered that the "creatures" were traveling through space on a kind of safari. They thought they were the visitors and we were the animals. Neither side knew that the other side thought they were the zoo creatures. Answer Got it. Zoo, by Edward D. Hoch. Published in 1958. Link to Publication History Link to PDF
Post a Comment
Read more

Could one of Voldemort's Death Eaters have killed or harmed Harry at Privet Drive?

In Order of the Phoenix , Dumbledore explains to Harry the protection that the Dursleys' home provides: While you can still call home the place where your mother's blood dwells, there you cannot be touched or harmed by Voldemort. He shed her blood, but it lives on in you and her sister. Her blood became your refuge. You need return there only once a year, but as long as you can still call it home, there he cannot hurt you. Your aunt knows this. I explained what I had done in the letter I left, with you, on her doorstep. She knows that allowing you houseroom may well have kept you alive for the past fifteen years. Dumbledore says that he cannot be "touched or harmed by Voldemort". Does this mean that he could have sent a Death Eater to just bust down the door and kill Harry, assuming that Voldemort would allow them to? And even if he didn't want them to kill him, could they have harmed him in some other way (e.g. the Cruciatus Curse)? Answer No. Harry was protect...
Post a Comment
Read more