2019-07-13T06:29:40-05:00

Last updated on: July 13, 2019 at 6:29 am   By

Grave of Edith Mary Tolkien (Luthien) and John  Ronald Reuel Tolkien (Beren)/ geograph

Reading Tolkien’s stories, it is easy to pick up the fact that the various races of Middle Earth often stood in competition with each other, causing various forms of racial tension and notions of racial supremacy to emerge.[1] Some readers, following this line of thought, try to use Tolkien as a prop for their own racism. They see that claims of superiority prove that there should be some races, some groups, which are seen as superior to others, who, then, are justified in keeping to themselves while they expect entitled treatment from others. However, this approach to his works would go against what Tolkien himself has said of his own beliefs elsewhere.

J.R.R. Tolkien, born in Bloemfontein, of the Orange Free State (now a part of South Africa), knew of the prejudices which were found in his birth place, prejudices which he firmly opposed. In his Valedictory Address to the University of Oxford (1959), he mentioned his firm detestation of all forms of apartheid:

If we consider what Merton College and what the Oxford School of English owes to the Antipodes, to the Southern Hemisphere, especially to scholars born in Australia and New Zealand, it may well be felt that it is only just that one of them should now ascend an Oxford chair of English. Indeed, it may be thought that justice has been delayed since 1925. There are of course other lands under the Southern Cross. I was born in one; though I do not claim to be the most learned of those who have come hither from the far end of the Dark Continent. But I have the hatred of apartheid in my bones; and most of all, I detest the segregation or separation of Language and Literature. I do not care which of them you think White.[2]

As Tolkien was a philologist, it is understandable why he mentioned his utter detestation of the artificial separation and division between the fields of Language and the Literature; he understood the study of one needed the study of the other. Trying to divide them, creating disciplines which saw themselves as superior to the other, fell for a grave error which would end up harming both. What is important and fitting about his remarks is that he understood such distinctions often were based upon prejudices and biases, artificial classifications, similar to the kinds which are used by racists to justify their racism. This is what tied his comments together. He did not care for what people looked for as being superior to others, and using that to justify the unjustifiable, that is the creation of artificial division among peoples based upon whatever biases they use to create such divisions. “I do not care which of them you think White,” indeed!

Knowing his biographical history will give a glimpse as to how Tolkien grew to detest such ideologies. While he was born in South Africa, he did not live there long; when he was three, when Tolkien, his brother Hilary, and his mother were visiting England, his father died. While his family was initially taken care of by other family members, when his mother converted to Catholicism (and with her, Tolkien and his brother as well), most of his extended family cut off all aid, so that the Tolkiens had to live on their own, with his mother working hard to take care of her children, both physically and spiritual. With all the stress, and poor physical health due to diabetes, she died young, at the age of thirty-four; by the time of her death, she had chosen Fr. Francis Xavier Morgan, a priest in the Birmingham Oratory, to be the guardian of her children. The prejudice which most (but not all) of his extended family held against Catholicism, he felt, had pushed her to an early death, making him realize how dangerous bigotry was to a healthy society.  He held high regard for Fr. Morgan, although, when he met Edith Bratt, Fr. Morgan put a stop to their relationship, demanding they stay apart until Tolkien was twenty-one years old.

The horror of his early life, the horror of feeling betrayed by his own family, is reflected in many of Tolkien’s own writings, including and especially in the story of Beren and Lúthien, characters which he saw connected to himself and the love of his life, Edith. Beren, a human, and Lúthien, the daughter of an Elvish king, fell in love, but Lúthien’s father, Thingol, opposed it as much as he could. While many note that the story reflects, in part, Tolkien’s experience of his own desire to marry Edith, and the challenges he faced with his guardian, Fr. Morgan, the racial prejudices which were manifest in Thingol’s rejection of Beren must not be ignored. Thingol’s objections to Beren marrying his daughter lay in part with Beren’s lowly status as a man, similar to the way many racists would be upset with their daughter dating and marrying a man who was of a race they denigrated:

But Thingol looked in silence upon Lúthien; and he thought in his heart: ‘Unhappy Men, children of little lords and brief kings, shall such as these lay hands on you, and yet live?’ Then breaking the silence he said: ‘I see the ring, son of Barahir, and I perceive that you are proud, and deem yourself mighty. But a father’s deeds, even had his service been rendered to me, avail not to win the daughter of Thingol and Melian. See now! I too desire a treasure that is withheld. For rock and steel and the fires of Morgoth keep the jewel that I would possess against all the powers of the Elf-kingdoms. Yet I hear you say that bonds such as these do not daunt you. Go your way therefore! Bring to me in your hand a Silmaril from Morgoth’s crown; and then, if she will, Lúthien may set her hand in yours. Then you shall have my jewel; and though the fate of Arda lie within the Silmarils, yet you shall hold me generous.’[3]

Tolkien understood what it was to be looked down upon by others, to be thought lesser, and mistreated because others believed themselves to be superior and demanded obedience and respect because of it. Thingol, seeing Beren as an inferior unworthy of his daughter, put forward a challenge that he thought could not be met, for Beren to take the Silmaril from the crown of the Dark Lord, Morgoth, knowing that Morgoth never would have it out of his presence. Thingol demanded what he thought was impossible, and yet Beren took up the quest. Beren, despite being a human, despite being apparently inferior to the Elves, proved himself their superior by doing what they thought was impossible: he was able to get the Silmaril, though it cost him much in the process, and Lúthien herself aided him so that without her, he would have failed. But the point is that Thingol had misjudged Beren, the way supremacists misjudge others: his own thoughts of superiority made him ignore the greatness which was before him. Beren was a great hero, indeed one of the greatest, whose glory surpassed most of the Elves.  When Beren completed the fool’s errand, Thingol finally understood what he had brought, all the harm which he caused to himself, to his kingdom, to his daughter, all because of his pride, and he actually had a change of heart:

Then Thingol’s mood was softened; and Beren sat before his throne upon the left, and Lúthien upon the right, and they told all the tale of the Quest, while all there listened and were filled with amazement. And it seemed to Thingol that this Man was unlike all other mortal Men, and among the great in Arda, and the love of Lúthien a thing new and strange; and he perceived that their doom might not be withstood by any power of the world. Therefore at the last he yielded his will, and Beren took the hand of Lúthien before the throne of her father.[4]

The challenge, then, which came out of Thingol reflected Tolkien’s own challenges to get his own guardian to accept his relationship with Edith, but yet, connected to it, we sense a little of Tolkien’s other challenges in life, the challenges of prejudice which he felt led his mother to her doom. Likewise, though Thingol relented, his notion of supremacy not only proved false, but also fatal to his kingdom of Doriath, for once the Silmaril was brought into Doriath, it was only a matter of time before Doriath met its own end. In this manner, Tolkien understood not only the way supremacy harms others but also harms those who hold such an ideology because they, in trying to create an artificial distinction from others, only weaken themselves in the process.

Racism and religious bigotry share a common core. Both forms of bias found Tolkien’s strong objection. Yet, he also realized how difficult it is to overcome either. Indeed, he knew how such ideologies infected the minds of great peoples, which is why the manifestation of this problem often found itself in his works with peoples who had reasons to think themselves to be great (such as the Elves). The problem is not in the recognition of their own greatness, but in the way they thought it meant others, in their differences, were inferior; those who had some sort of racial pride often became negligent in that pride, causing their own destruction, while those of other races, those who were considered to be inferior, were often the very ones who achieved the greatest deeds of all, showing how far from reality such prejudices actually were. Perhaps the most important demonstration of this in The Lord of the Rings is found in what Tolkien recorded of the deeds of the Hobbits, the little folk who seemed to be insignificant and yet who, among all others, were the ones who were able to do what needed to be done to save Middle Earth. The Elves, despite their apparent greatness, just stood back and let things fall apart, and in doing so, felt the slow waning of their power and influence in Middle Earth.

Because of Tolkien’s hatred for apartheid, which he felt was so integral to his own being, it should not be surprising to see reflections within his works which demonstrate the failing of such a political ideology, and with it, all forms of racial discrimination. Nonetheless, for this to be found in his works, Tolkien needed to have various versions of racial supremacy in his tales. Those who read his stories thinking the existence of such biases prove Tolkien’s own support of them need only to read his utter detestation of the apartheid which existed in the land of his birth and see how mistaken they are.

[1] Thus, there is a great deal of conflict between Elves, Dwarves, and Men. But, it is also true, that within each group, the potential for further kinds of supremacy emerge, such as those found with the Elves, and the way they are divided into differing groups, such as the Avari, and the Vanyar, Noldor, and Teleri.

[2] J.R.R. Tolkien, “Valedictory Address” in The Monster & The Critics and Other Essays (London: HarperCollins, 1997), 238.

[3]  J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1977), 167.

[4] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion, 184.

 

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2019-05-14T06:58:34-05:00

Last updated on: May 14, 2019 at 6:58 am   By

Antoine Glédel: Orque Terre du Milieu / Wikimedia Commons

Many fans of J.R.R. Tolkien like to use his works to promote war. Others, likewise, like to use his works as a defense of racism. The first group suggests that the works of Tolkien are filled with war, showing the good which can come out of it, forgetting, however, the ultimate solution for Tolkien was not war, and the embrace of power which is required in war to be a “victor,” but the destruction of the Ring, and the rejection of all ideologies of power. Those of the second group like to use Orcs as a metaphor, representing all the races and culture they want to destroy, forgetting that Tolkien wanted it to be understood that the Orcs represented the corruption that can take place and destroy anyone from any race or culture. The Orcs, then, can be found anywhere, and indeed, are found everywhere. The way some of the so-called “ultra-right” or “alt-right” try to use and employ motifs from Tolkien’s works do so in a way to corrupt them, indeed, overturning the insights which inspired Tolkien to write his stories.

Thus, while Tolkien firmly rejected the evils which came out of Nazi Germany, horrified by the way Hitler had used and abused the “noble northern spirit” with a demonic perversion of it,[1] he was also concerned with the way the Allies in World War II were embracing the same perversions so that in the future, they would risk becoming that which they fought against. That is, he saw many were embracing the will to power and domination, the power of the Ring, while others were promoting and spreading terrible ideologies which turned people into “Orcs.” Using parallels from his own stories, Tolkien explained his fear to his son, Christopher:

However it is, humans being what they are, quite inevitable, and the only cure (short of universal Conversion) is not to have wars – nor planning, nor organizations, nor regimentation. Your service is, of course, as anybody with any intelligence and ears and eyes knows, a very bad one, living on the repute of a few gallant men, and you are probably in a particularly bad corner of it. But all Big Things planned in a big way feel like that to the toad under the harrow, though on a general view they do function and do their job. An ultimately evil job. For we are attempting to conquer Sauron with the Ring. And we shall (it seems) succeed. But the penalty is, as you will know, to breed new Saurons, and slowly turn Men and Elves into Orcs. Not that in real life things are as clear cut as in a story, and we started out with a great many Orcs on our side …[2]

Despite what some of his fans might suggest, Tolkien understood the horrors of war. While he did not object to the notion of a just defense, he was against any militant notions such as a pre-emptive strike as being justified. He thought that the solution to war was not more war, or plans for more wars, but rather, to go beyond the logic of war itself. War begets war; preparing for war leads to people to accept the unacceptable, to use “the Ring” in order to achieve an easy victory, only to find themselves becoming Dark Lords themselves. As the Orcs were created by corruption, that is, they must not be seen as a race which developed on its own, Tolkien understood that with a new Dark Lord there would be more Orcs, that is, more corrupted people who would follow the ideologies of that new Dark Lord. Racism, nationalism, fearmongering, hatred, selfishness, and the rejection of the common good, all of these are a part of the corruption which creates an Orc, the willing slave of a Dark Lord.

Tolkien was concerned with what the Allies were willing to use in order to achieve victory. He knew and saw firsthand the corruption of the will to power, and with it, a willingness to use whatever force one could attain as a means of destroying others. While Tolkien was clear that the Ring was not an allegory of the Atomic Bomb, because he wrote of the Ring long before the bomb was created and used, it is clear Tolkien saw in it a darkness which was similar to the power of the Ring itself:

The news today about ‘Atomic bombs’ is so horrifying one is stunned. The utter folly of these lunatic physicists to consent to do such work for war-purposes: calmly plotting the destruction of the world! Such explosives in men’s hands, while their moral and intellectual status is declining, is about as useful as giving out firearms to all inmates of a gaol and then saying that you hope ‘this will ensure peace.’[3]

While we must avoid any suggestion that the Ring was meant as an allegory of the Atomic Bomb, it is not wrong to see Tolkien’s understanding of the power and destruction possible with the Ring to be something contained within Atomic weaponry. Those who possess such weaponry face the same corruption and power as those who possess the Ring. The Ring is not an allegory of the bomb, it is something deeper, because Tolkien’s literary analysis transcends the bomb. Tolkien’s presentation of the way the Ring corrupts its users points out the way any such evil, any attempt to create a force of power and domination of others, will corrupt those who employ their use. Even when some good is intended, the corruption will be there.  For this reason, although the Ring is not an allegory of the bomb, it represents the same fundamental error which is had by those who produced and used the bomb, explaining how and why it could appear to be such an allegory.

With the rise of militant nationalism and alt-right leaders who engage nationalism for the sake of power, thus, with those embracing some form of the Ring, Tolkien’s words to his son appear prophetic. And just like Hitler once used the “northern spirit” with all its tales, tales which Tolkien himself had loved in his youth, to corrupt his people and turn them into Orcs, so we see many use other good tales, even Tolkien’s, are being used and abused to corrupt others. The same type of nationalistic pride and the same violent, xenophobic stand suggested by Hitler and other fascists of Tolkien’s day are on the rise once again.  Tolkien, who was somewhat confused by the reaction to his work in the 1960s, would be disgusted with the way some are using his works to promote the rise of a new Dark Lord, a new Sauron.  Instead of being used to glorify war, they should be used to exemplify the lesson Tolkien himself learned through his own military experience: war is hell, and in its wake, those who are said to be its victors lose much of themselves in the process. After World War I and II, Europe, indeed, the world was harmed because the common good was overturned:

I have just heard the news … Russians 60 miles from Berlin. It does look as if something decisive might happen soon. The appalling destruction and misery of this war mount hourly: destruction of what should be (indeed is) the common wealth of Europe, and the world, if mankind were not so besotted, wealth the loss of which will affect us all, victors or not. Yet people gloat to hear of the endless lines, 40 miles long, of miserable refugees, women and children pouring West, dying on the way. There seems no bowels of mercy or compassion, no imagination, left in this dark diabolic hour. [4]

Tolkien had a sense that humanity needed to come together, to embrace a way beyond the war of war. Europe, and the world, both had a common heritage and wealth which could be and should be shared by all, instead of some group or another thinking selfishly for their own interests alone. Pain and sorrow create more pain and sorrow: the victors of World War II had not learned the lesson of the war because they had begun to recreate the structures of sin which led to Hitler and his destructive march across Europe. Refugees, women and children, fleeing from war-torn sites should be given compassion and mercy, not ridicule and further abuse: the devilish temptation which had turned Hitler crazy could be seen finding a new host in the rest of Europe in the terrible reaction many Europeans had for such refugees. This evil ideology festered, and now has become a terrible outgrowth affecting not only Europe, but the rest of the world, with the treatment of the Trump administration with those seeking asylum representing one horrifying example of this evil.

Readers of Tolkien’s works should not be surprised about his perspective because it finds itself repeated several times in his works. Certainly, the need for people of different races, people of different lands, to overcome their differences and work together for the common good presents itself time and time again in his works.

In The Hobbit, dwarves, elves and humans had to overcome their histories of antagonism, mistrust, and greed, in over to come together and face the common enemy:

“Come!” called Gandalf. “There is yet time for council. Let Dain son of Nain come swiftly to us!”

So began a battle that none had expected; and it was called the Battle of Five Armies, and it was very terrible. Upon one side were the Goblins and the wild Wolves, and upon the other were Elves and Men and Dwarves.[5]

When people realize the trouble they face together, they need to come together, forgetting their rivalries if they want to succeed:

This is the plan that he made in council with the Elvenking, and with Bard; and with Dain, for the dwarf-lord now joined them: the Goblins were the foes of all, and at their coming all other quarrels were forgotten.[6]

What was true in The Hobbit was also true in The Lord of the Rings. The free peoples needed to come together, to join in the mission of Frodo to destroy the Ring. Only together, not apart, could they do what was necessary for success:

The Company of the Ring shall be Nine; and the Nine Walkers shall be set against the Nine Riders that are evil. With you and your faithful servant, Gandalf will go; for this shall be his great task, and maybe the end of his labours.

For the rest, they shall represent the other Free Peoples of the World: Elves, Dwarves, and Men. Legolas shall be for the Elves; and Gimli son of Glóin for the Dwarves. They are willing to go at least to the passes of the Mountains, and maybe beyond. For men you shall have Aragorn son of Arathorn, for the Ring of Isildur concerns him closely.[7]

Once again, only by coming together, and overcoming old prejudices, did the fellowship prove itself to transcend the ways of Sauron and have what it took to succeed in their mission. Perhaps no better representative of this is found in the Lord of the Rings than with the way Gimli was won over by Galadriel: the dark history between the dwarves and the elves, a history which included some of the way the elves treated the dwarves in The Hobbit finds itself overturned and healed by three golden strands of Galadriel’s hair.

And to those who would like to make some sort of separatist movement, promoting a particular ideology and trying to keep it pure and untouched from outsiders, Tolkien consistently wrote of the end result of such a wasted effort. This could be seen in the fall of Gondolin. Gondolin, to be sure, had started with a good objective and not the same ideology as many moderns wanting to retreat from world, fell because of its own attempt to keep to itself and hide itself from the world. Its destruction came from within as Maeglin, the king’s nephew, became an ally with Morgoth, the Dark Lord, and helped Morgoth in destroying Gondolin. In contrast to Gondolin, the elves at Rivendell never entirely cut themselves off from the rest of Middle Earth, and it was because of this Rivendell could become not only a true safe haven for those in need, but also a place of council where the plan to overturn Sauron’s hold on Middle Earth could be made. Indeed, Elrond was half-elven, demonstrating that great leadership and wisdom and authority came to him in part because he was able to take from the best of two different races and cultures, repudiating within his own being any notion of the superiority of “racial purity.”

Tolkien, far from a figure representative of the alt-right, or the ultra-right wing with their ideologies of power, warmongering, and xenophobia, was a writer who wrote against those ideologies, afraid of what their embrace would bring into the world. When he begun his sequel to The Lord of the Rings, The New Shadow, he saw, to his dismay, corruption was once again taking place in Middle Earth: kids were forming gangs, pretending to be Orcs, showing that Gondor had not learned its lesson from the fight against Sauron. It was too dire a story and Tolkien did not write much before giving up on his sequel and returning to his earlier tales, perfecting them throughout the rest of his life. But yet, it serves as a fine representation of the warning which he gave to Christopher: the people of the earth need not only to be victorious against the other, but they need to be victorious in a way that overturns the ideology of the other lest they become that which they fight against and doom themselves to repeat the evils of the past. The rise of the alt-right is like the rise of children turning into “Orc gangs” after the defeat of Sauron. We, unlike Tolkien, have to face them and deal with them today. Let us remember what it is we fought for in the past, what we should fight for now, and do so by not embracing the power of the Ring and turning  ourselves into Dark Lords: let us, rather, embrace the truths which the alt-right reject and follow them to overturn the alt-right itself. Compassion, mercy, imagination, and the common good: these need to be our tools; Tolkien understood this. Let us heed his wisdom.

[1] See J.R.R. Tolkien, “Letter 45 to Michael Tolkien” in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Ed. Humphrey Carpenter (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1981), 55-6.

[2] J.R.R. Tolkien, “Letter 66 to Christopher Tolkien” in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Ed. Humphrey Carpenter (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1981), 78.

[3] J.R.R. Tolkien, “Letter 102 to Christopher Tolkien” in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Ed. Humphrey Carpenter (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1981), 116.

[4] J.R.R. Tolkien, “Letter 96 to Christopher Tolkien” in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Ed. Humphrey Carpenter (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1981), 111.

[5] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1966; rev. 1978), 237.

[6] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, 237.

[7]  J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1966.), 288-9.

 

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2018-04-12T02:48:50-05:00

Last updated on: April 12, 2018 at 2:48 am   By

In The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, with his mythopoetic style, created a world filled with different races and cultures which had histories of their own, pitting them in conflict with each other. Each race, each nation, each culture could list valid grievances against each other; the Elves and the Dwarves certainly had a long history of distrust and dislike which would otherwise seem unsurmountable. And yet, when Sauron was revealed once again active in Middle Earth, they were able to come together, put aside their differences, and work for the common good. Wisdom not only demonstrated that the Ring had to be destroyed, but also, the conflicts which separated and divided the peoples of Middle Earth had to be overcome so that they could work together to bring about the downfall of Sauron.  Thus, after Frodo had indicated he would take the Ring to Mordor, Elrond made sure he would have suitable companions to help him with his task, companions representing the different peoples of Middle Earth:

‘And I will choose you companions to go with you, as far as they will or fortune allows. The number must be few, since your hope is in speed and secrecy. Had I a host of Elves in armour of the Elder Days, it would avail little, save to arouse the power of Mordor.

‘The Company of the Ring shall be Nine; and the Nine Walkers shall be set against the Nine Riders that are evil. With you and your faithful servant, Gandalf will go; for this shall be his great task, and maybe the end of his labours.

‘For the rest, they shall represent the other Free Peoples of the World: Elves, Dwarves, and Men. Legolas shall be for the Elves; and Gimli son of Glóin for the Dwarves. They are willing to go at least to the passes of the Mountains, and maybe beyond. For men you shall have Aragorn son of Arathorn, for the Ring of Isildur concerns him closely.’[1]

Evil divides, while the common good unites. The Ring, itself a force of evil, often found its way to cause division even within the Fellowship, which can be seen especially with the fate of Boromir indicated, and yet even in the midst of such evil, something good can come about and heal what is wounded, as also the repentance and end of Boromir also indicated. What divides, what destroys the common good, what causes strife and conflict, can be and must be dealt with; but it must be dealt with in the right way, with respect for the common good. The common good is real, and it must be, in its nature, pluralistic, allowing for diversity. When some are unable to find their place within the common good, the common good is itself undermined.

This is one of the many lessons which can be found in The Lord of the Rings. The common good requires a pluralistic approach; the little people of the world, those who seem small and insignificant, represented by the Hobbits, have a task equal to or even greater than those who otherwise seem to be influential and important in the affairs of the world. Diversity brings strength, so long as the diversity is brought together for the common good. The rich must give way to the poor as the poor inherits the earth so that they can enjoy the good of the earth with the poor.

The scandal of the incarnation is itself a pluralistic scandal. In the body of Christ, there is a diversity of persons.  “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and all were made to drink of one Spirit” (1Cor. 12:12-13 RSV). Salvation might be from the Jews, but it is opened up to all – all are to come together and share their gifts with each other, helping each other, serving each other in love, overriding the division established by sin. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28 RSV).  And yet, in that unity, there comes a new diversity; people do not find themselves being absorbed into the body of Christ with their personal differences are undermined. In Christ, they should discern that they are called to serve each other, not lording it over each other because they believe their unique qualities make them superior to everyone else:

As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”  On the contrary, the parts of the body which seem to be weaker are indispensable,  and those parts of the body which we think less honorable we invest with the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior part,  that there may be no discord in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.  (1Cor. 12:20-25 RSV),

Understanding, therefore, that conflict due to division in the world is the result of sin, the Christian is to seek to bring a harmonious unity to the different peoples and cultures in Christ, working to serve and help each other with their unique gifts.  Those who were seen as less and inferior turn out to be the very ones who should be promoted just as those who thought themselves to be great because of their place in divided humanity will find their greatness was a result of sin and is going to be undermined before they find their true place in the better harmony of Christ:

And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said: “Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. “Blessed are you that hunger now, for you shall be satisfied. “Blessed are you that weep now, for you shall laugh. “Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, on account of the Son of man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.

“But woe to you that are rich, for you have received your consolation.  “Woe to you that are full now, for you shall hunger. “Woe to you that laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. “Woe to you, when all men speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets” (Lk. 6:20-26 RSV).

Those who benefit from sin will suffer as a result of their sin; they get the reward of sin. However, this does not have to be their end. They are called to penance, to join in with the little people, to work together and overcome the division and hostility which they thrive upon, so that the common good can be established. In the Lord of the Rings, this is established by the way the Hobbits, the lowly people of the Shire, are aided by the great heroes of their time;  the disharmony which divided Elf, Dwarf and Man from each other was overcome by the little people, the poor in spirit, so that in wisdom, new friendships were formed which allowed them to overcome the power of darkness, the One Ring which would divide them all. Tolkien certainly understood the positive value of pluralism in society, even as he understood the evils of racism and the conflicts which arose from racist ideologies (as can be seen in the treatment of humanity by the Elves), but he also understood the common good and the good which is established in a unified diversity.

Pluralism is at the heart of the Christian message; the early disciples had to learn this as their prejudices against Samaritans and Gentiles gave way to the church’s universal scope. The way to destroy the ring, the power of evil which divides people against each other, is the same as it is in the Lord of the Rings. The little people, the people poor in spirit but big in faith, must be aided by the rest of society; then together they must journey to where the ring was constructed, that is, to the causes which establish the social structures of evil in society, and overturn them together. Where there is hatred and injustice, love and justice must prevail.  The roots of the evil must be overturned with the humble leading the way. Pluralism is not against the Gospel, it is the fruit of the Gospel. The evil of Babel is overturned by the Spirit of Life, as the church comes together, united under the humblest of all, the Lord Jesus Christ, who emptied himself of all so that he can reign over all with love.

 

[Image=A Hobbit by  Antoine Glédel [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons[

[1] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1954; rpr. 1994), 268.

 

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2016-02-09T16:08:23-05:00

Last updated on: February 9, 2016 at 4:08 pm   By

Kullervo on Tolkien Bookshelf, Photograph by Henry Karlson
Kullervo on Tolkien Bookshelf, Photograph by Henry Karlson

It has long been known that the story of Kullervo from the Finnish legendarium, the Kalevala, played an important role in the early development of J. R. R. Tolkien’s own legendarium. The Kullervo cycle in the Kalevala served as a foundation for the tragic character of Túrin Turambar in The Silmarillion. There has been for some time a debate as to the kind of influence Kullervo had on Tolkien. It was not until recently that most Tolkien scholars got a chance to read Tolkien’s early attempt at writing with his own re-telling of the Kullervo story itself that most of the arguments have ended, showing that its structure and ideas, while adapted and transformed, clearly set the stage for the creation of Túrin.

But, for some, the story of Kullervo seemed to be a rather odd character for Tolkien to find so interesting, as John Garth explained:

It is a strange story to have captured the imagination of a fervent Roman Catholic: Kullervo unwittingly seduces his sister, who kills herself, and then he too commits suicide.[1]

Verlyn Flieger, in the commentary and notes to the published edition of what Tolkien had finished of The Story of Kullervo, explained that at the time of writing the story, Tolkien might not have been so fervent in his faith, and certainly, he did not find it strange nor his interest in the work in conflict with whatever faith he did hold:

Tolkien clearly did not find it strange (‘great’ and ‘tragic’ were his adjectives), and seems to have felt no conflict with his Catholicism, which at that point was apparently not very ‘fervent’ anyway. Carpenter cites Tolkien’s acknowledgment that his first terms at Oxford ‘had passed “with practically none or very little practice of religion”’ (Biography, p.58), and notes ‘his lapses of the previous year [1912]’ (ibid., p. 66).[2]

Both seem to think that an answer could lie in the circumstances Tolkien found himself in. He was, up to that point, living a tragic life of his own, having lost his parents and finding himself kept away from the love of his life, Edith.

While the extent of Tolkien’s “lapses” from his faith are hard for us to know without further reading and study of writings not generally available to the average Tolkien reader (such as more letters and his diary), whatever the case, I think Tolkien would have had as high an attraction and love for the story, even if he was as fervent a Catholic reading it as he was later in life.

That is, I think it comes from a mistaken understanding of both Tolkien and Catholicism to find such a fascination with Kullervo problematic. Heroic tales and legends have long been told and retold, and held in esteem, by Catholics, long before Tolkien. His beloved Beowulf is a great example of this, where we find the author, and the audience, being Catholic – and yet full of appreciation and respect for the pre-Christian worldview which is echoed throughout the tale. Tolkien saw it was a pre-Christian tale being adapted by a Christian writer, often inserting Christian themes which sometimes interrupted the tale to make its Christianization complete, such as when he discussed the relationship between Cain and Grendel:

Our poet’s answer in the first case he found in the book of Genesis. The misformed man-mocking monsters were descendants of Cain. And the reference to the ‘giants’ of old clinched the matter for him. The blending is clearly observable: he begins with northern words eotenas, ylfe (two classes of non-human but human-shaped creatures), and ends with the word gigantas borrowed from the Latin version of Scripture [Genesis VI.4]. [3]

Beowulf was not particular unique in doing this. Medieval literature often contained such a mix, though sometimes the writer would lean more Christian in style than found in Beowulf, and others more succinctly pre-Christian. And, we must remember, he had grown to love the fantastic literature of the nineteenth century, such as found in the writings of William Morris, which had a great influence on Tolkien, where the medieval mixture of the two traditions could and would be found again (with some other, significant sources of inspiration, such as the new social awareness that had developed in modern times, also found in such stories). In other words, Tolkien not only had been long accustomed to the kind of tales he found in the Kalevala, leading him to reproduce similar kinds of stories himself, but he had already seen that medieval Christians had no problems producing such tales of their own. While, it is true, that the Reformation and Counter-Reformation had brought about a worldview which became more critical of such pagan-Christian syntheses, Tolkien was not beholden to it, and so would have no reason to feel as if there were any conflict between his faith and the kinds of stories he loved to read and later write.

This is not to say that there was no sense of consolation Tolkien felt reading tragic tales with heroes who had experienced similar (but much worse) tragedy as himself, and finding such stories attractive, felt the need to write one out during a time of personal crisis. Good writers often put much of themselves in their writing. But to get into the internal psyche of Tolkien in such a manner is not needed for us to understand how and why he could pick up such stories, be fascinated by them, write them, and feel no conflict in doing so with his religious faith. His faith was able to embrace and take in the light of other faiths, to appreciate what they have to offer, and show how they can work with and complement the Christian faith.

And that is something we all need to be able to appreciate, not just as a way to understand Tolkien, but to help is in our own walk with God in general. He shows us that what might seem impossible if we rely upon a fundamentalist mindset is possible, and not because of lack of faith, but in and with it. For the Christian faith is incarnational. It takes the good wherever it is found, and embraces it, and shows how that good relates to other goods. Truth is truth no matter where it is found. And if we encounter something beautiful, something glorious, that we find ourselves spiritually attracted to it, the beauty shows that there is some goodness and truth there, that it would be dangerous to entirely dismiss and reject that which we find so attractive. Certainly we might need to work with the beauty, and find the kernel of truth and goodness shining forth in it, so that we can find the right way to embrace it, and that work is never easy, but that is different from a wholesale dismissal of the truth because of where the ray of truth is found. Thus, we find in Vatican Council II, the exhortation of Nostra Aetate to do just this:

The Church, therefore, exhorts her sons, that through dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions, carried out with prudence and love and in witness to the Christian faith and life, they recognize, preserve and promote the good things, spiritual and moral, as well as the socio-cultural values found among these men.[4]

Tolkien represented, in literary fashion, what this meant; he did not produce such a tradition but was only the heir and a great representative of it in the twentieth century. Certainly, any spiritual crisis he might have had could, therefore, have been helped by his love and embrace of such myths and legends as the Kalevala. We could possibly see an element of how he deepened his faith with his love for myths in his poem, Mythopoeia, as much as see how he helped his friend, C.S. Lewis come to the faith through a similar embrace of such great legends and myths. But even if he did not have such a crisis of faith himself, there should be no surprise or confusion that Tolkien the Medievalist, Tolkien the fan of the pre-Raphaelites and William Morris, would find such a legendarium as fascinating as he did.

[1] John Garth, Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle Earth (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003), 26.

[2] J. R. R. Tolkien, The Story of Kullervo. ed. Verlyn Flieger (London: HarperCollinsPublishers, 2015), 142.

[3] J.R.R. Tolkien, Beowulf. A Translation and Commentary. Together with Sellic Spell. ed. Christopher Tolkien (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2014), 162.

[4] Nostra Aetate ¶2. Vatican Translation.

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2025-06-26T01:31:42-05:00

Last updated on: June 26, 2025 at 1:31 am   By
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Македонец: Elijah Being Taken To Heaven (From Monastery Of St. Elijah On Ilinska Mountain, Macedonia) / Wikimedia Commons

Historically, many considered talk about heaven, or the heavens above, to be a purely physical place, that is, outer space, and it is the place Christ is to be found after his ascension. They believed that Christ reigns in glory in the heavens above us all, looking down upon us, and if we could make our way there, we would be with him. It is also where Enoch, Elijah, and Mary are also to be found. While a popular, and probably for centuries, the most common way people interpreted the heavens, there were others, especially those philosophically or theologically educated, who did not accept such a simple take. They believed the use of the heavens in Scripture and tradition was metaphoric; they accepted, in general, the same cosmology of their peers, but they thought the use of the heavens above was meant to serve as an analogy to the new modality of being which is to be had by those who enter in the kingdom of God and are glorified in it. That is, just as the heavens above were understood to transcend the earth, so the kingdom of God, “heaven,” transcends our current mode of being. How much space exists beyond the earth, most could not say. Some thought it was limited, others considered it potentially infinite, but no matter how much space they believed existed, they thought there were different heavens, each one transcending the one beneath it, allowing for further and further transcendence in the material realm; those who understood heaven as a metaphor suggested that this meant those in the kingdom of God will be able to continue to develop and grow, to constantly transcend themselves throughout eternity. Similarly, as Thomas Hopko pointed out, since the heavens above surround the world we live in, so God is said to surround all things (even as God is found in and able to be experienced in all things):

The statement that the Father is “in heaven,” or literally “in the heavens,” means that He is everywhere and over all things. The heavens are over all and encompass all. Wherever man goes on the earth or in the air, or even in space, the heavens are around him and over him. To say that the Father is “in the heavens” means that He is not tied down or limited to any one location—as were the gods of the heathens. The heavenly God is the “God of gods” (Deut 10.17, 2 Chron 2.5), the “Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all” (Eph 4.5), the one in whom “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17.28). To say that God is “in heaven” is not to place Him somewhere; it is rather to say that He transcends all things and yet is present to all.[1]

Scripture is written in a style which is far different from modern, positivistic forms of writing. Throughout, even in texts which tend to be literal (in the modern sense of literal), it is never free from poetic diction and the mythic mindset of the past, especially when the text is dealing with a theological or spiritual concern. This is why those who do not understand the poetic diction, and how to engage it, will misunderstand Scripture, as they will tend to read poetic or mythic descriptions and metaphors literally, and it is such literalization of the text which has led many Christians (and non-Christians) astray. Even texts which at one time could be taken literally often had a non-literal application, and it is that application which Christians believed they must be embrace. Thus, when dealing with its use of the words “heaven” and  “heavens,” we should engage them as we would do with all poetic diction, knowing that the ancient cosmology the writers used has been utterly overturned by science. This allows us to still learn from Scripture and not be led to think Scripture is false since astronauts did not find Jesus, Enoch, Elijah, or Mary when they left the earth. This is also how we can answer those who have asked where God is, now that God was not found by those going out into space. To be sure, God can be found in space, if one looks for God in the right fashion, but God is found there in the way God can be found in and through the world itself – we come to know and experience God through the works of God, especially the way God has created all that exists. Everything, in their existence, participates in God’s existence, and in and through that participation, partakes of a quality of God themselves, allowing them to imagine or represent God, each in their own unique way. Those who did not find God in space did not find God because they did not know how to properly find God on earth, while those who know how to find God on earth see the work of God in space and so can and do find God in the heavens, even if they do not go there themselves. One way this truth is presented to us is in and through iconography; in icons, the saints are shown to exist in the kingdom of God, calling us to follow after them, and experience the kingdom of God, not just when we die, but while we live:

In the icon, personages and events are considered to be in heaven. They live and more in the kairos of God, every flowing, ever present, in “spiritual space.” They are in heaven and lead us to heaven. It is from the Holy Spirit and in the Holy Spirit that they acquire infinite extension and duration, and it is the Holy Spirit who endows them with the grace to be present and to be real. Because the Holy Spirit cannot be confirmed or limited in a physical space, they also are free from physical confinement and limitation.[2]

Because of the way the words “heaven” and “heavens” can be interpreted as being either the physical space which lies beyond the earth, or the kingdom of God, much confusion often ensues when the term heaven is used. This has certainly been the case throughout Christian history.  Sometimes people mean the kingdom of God when talking about heaven. Sometimes people mean outer space. Sometimes, people equate the two, but other times, people view them as analogues to each other. Due to the confusion and equivocation which can occur, it is often best to speak of the  kingdom of God and not heaven, unless dealing with ancient texts. Nonetheless, it is important to point out how ancient writers, including those who wrote various texts found in Scripture, might have equated the two. Just as Jonah preached the truth and got things wrong in his understanding of it, so we can accept the writer of a text was wrong in their cosmological understanding while believing that the text can and still does promote an authentic theological teaching. This is also why we should not be concerned with the way ancient writers viewed the cosmos as much as we should be concerned about the meaning we can gain from a proper engagement of what they wrote.

 

 

[1] Thomas Hopko, The Orthodox Faith. Volume 4: Spirituality (Yonkers, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1981; rev. ed. 2016), 110.

[2] Archbishop Joseph Raya, The Abundance of Love: The Incarnation and Byzantine Tradition  (Combermere, ON: Madonna House Publications, 1989; 3rd ed.: 2016), 44.

 

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2025-06-04T02:02:25-05:00

Last updated on: June 4, 2025 at 2:02 am   By
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Jim Forest: Jonah / flickr

J.R.R. Tolkien, who worked on a translation of the book of Jonah for the Jerusalem Bible, found much in the text worthy of his own personal exploration and consideration. One point which he found important is the way God and God’s mercy often is not properly understood by those who are authentically called by God to do some work in the world. Even prophets, while inspired, are human, and their human misunderstanding can and often does get in the way of what God wants to happen. This, after all, is what happened to Jonah, and if it can happen to him, it can happen to others who have an authentic charism, an authentic mission in the church, including clergy. Everyone, especially those with such a charism, must come to know themselves and their limitations; they must not presume too much when they find they are given some authority in the church or in the world. They certainly must not try to presume to tell God to judge and condemn those whom God wants to save, which of course, is everyone:

Incidentally, if you ever look at the Old Testament, and look at Jonah, you’ll find that the ‘whale’  — it is not  really said to be a whale but a big fish – is quite unimportant. The real point is that God is much more merciful than ‘prophets’, is easily moved by penitence, and won’t be dictated to even by high ecclesiastics whom he has himself appointed.[1]

To be sure, Tolkien recognized that God’s mercy is related to God’s judgement; the judgment which came upon Nineveh was dispensed with when the people of Nineveh (and all the creatures within) repented (and then fasted as a sign of their penitence). God’s judgment, which Jonah declared, was not meant to give a final say of what would happen to Nineveh, but only what could happen if they did not change. It was meant to help them change, which is what Jonah did not understand; similarly, it is something which many Christians have yet to understand, especially those who have embraced some form of legalism, because such legalism does not understand economia and the way God can and will transcend such judgments. Thus, God’s mercy does not serve sin and help is flourish, but rather, the reverse; it is what helps sin to truly come to an end. It gives people the grace they need to be set free from sin and the judgment which comes upon it. If all that is possible is that those who sin will be condemned without mercy, without any chance of change, sin will remain in control and have the last say. But that is not what Christianity teaches; rather, sin is overcome by Christ. He took up the sin of the world on his shoulders, so that, through his death, he could deposit it all at the edge of being, in the abyss, so it is has been put into its proper place and order can be restored in creation.

Sin is unnatural, a corruption of being; it suggests some form of the truth, but it takes and distorts the truth, corrupting it, turning it into a lie, a lie which Christ denounces: “To be merciful does not mean to justify falsehood and sin. It does not mean to be tolerant of foolishness and evil. It does not mean to overlook injustice and iniquity. God is not this way, and does not do this.”[2] What we must not do is confuse the judgment of sin as the final declaration of what will happen to the person trapped by it. Jonah had that confusion, and it led him to rebel against God and try to resist his prophetic ministry,  a ministry which had him declare the judgment God made concerning Nineveh’s sin. He did not understand that with the judgment, there could be a greater declaration made by God, a declaration of mercy. God is willing to free those who humble themselves and seek to change their ways. God loves humanity, including sinners, and has compassion on them  all. We, then, should seek such mercy, allowing it to change us to that we find ourselves reflecting such mercy in all we do; it is what will make us empathetic with others, especially those struggling with sin:

To be merciful means to have compassion on evil-doers and to sympathize with those who are caught in the bonds of sin. It means to forego every self-righteousness and every self-justification in comparison with others. It means to refuse to condemn those who do wrong, but to forgive those who harm and destroy, both themselves and others. It is to say with utter seriousness, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” (Mt 6.12).[3]

When he started his prophetic mission, Jonah did not understand divine forgiveness; he only knew the judgment which God had made. He was frightened. He did not want to speak. Likely, he knew himself and his own sin, and was afraid that he would hear God’s condemnation coming down upon himself. Eventually, however, he would learn. When he tried to flee from God, when he tried to abandon his mission and not go to Nineveh, he got caught up in his own sin and imprisoned by it. That is, he was swallowed up by the “whale,” the whale which allegorically represents hell itself. In it, he experienced a kind of death and destruction, and only when he repented did he find himself forgiven and freed from the “whale”; then, it is as if he were raised from the dead and turned into a new man. In that way, he was taught that God’s judgment makes way for mercy, and that the condemnation made in the judgment was conditional. This is why the fate of Nineveh changed. The conditions changed. Jonah’s personal story therefore is similar to and reflects the story of the people of Nineveh. Jonah and the people of Nineveh both serve as a sign, the sign of Jesus, the sign of God’s forgiveness and grace which will be offered to all and can free everyone from the hell of sin. Let us heed the lesson and  not be like Jonah, standing only on the judgment and condemnation of sin; instead, let us look to the sign of Jonah and the hope it provides, the hope that God’s mercy can come upon all, including and especially those who have received some sort of judgment from God. The warnings we read of those who might be condemned to hell must be seen in this light: they are conditional judgments. We do not know the end result of such conditions. We do not know if anyone will be eternally lost. This is why we can and should hope that all will be saved, which is not to say the process of salvation will be easy (as the story of Jonah demonstrates).

[1] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Revised and Expanded Edition. Ed. Humphrey Carpenter and Christopher Tolkien (Broadway, NY: William Morrow, 2023), 370 [Letter 196a to Michael George Tolkien].

[2] Thomas Hopko, The Orthodox Faith. Volume 4: Spirituality (Yonkers, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1981; rev. ed. 2016), 44.

[3] Thomas Hopko, The Orthodox Faith. Volume 4, 44.

2025-04-24T02:06:47-05:00

Last updated on: April 24, 2025 at 2:06 am   By
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Auguste Rodin (Metropolitan Museum of Art): The Hand of God / Wikimedia Commons

One ancient heresy which was common among those who read Scripture very simply, very literally, and sometimes finds itself manifest to this day, is the belief that God has a material body, and with that body,  looks like us, or rather, we, in our bodies, resemble God’s physical form. Those who hold this belief say this is what it means to be made in God’s image and likeness. We were made to resemble God, having a body like God’s body, so when Scripture talks about bodily parts, such as a head, hands, fingers, a heart, and feet, all of them are to be taken literally. This kind of reading shows someone who does not understand poetic diction, and with it the symbols and analogies being presented when it is used. Christianity (and Judaism before) recognizes God does not have a physical body, but rather, is a spirit.

One way to challenge this reading, beyond Christian tradition, and those verses which talk about God being a spirit, is to point out nowhere does Scripture say only humanity is made in God’s image and likeness. Rather, it is possible to say all things, in their own way, are made to conform to God’s image and likeness, to be logoi of the Logos, so that everything, in their own way, reflects the divine, including those who do not posses such bodily parts.

Of course, we can and should apprehend the divine nature by examining ourselves, trying to discern what in us can serve as an analogy to reflect a quality of the divine nature. This is why, Scripture can use various human features, like hands, to represent God, but we must understand it does so to have us consider how those features represent something within the divine nature itself. Didymus the Blind, and many others, when talking about what Scripture means when talking about God’s hands says they represent powers God uses to act upon creation; in that manner, Didymus said we can talk about God as having more than two hands:

And it is also possible to say that there are not only two hands of God, for it was not said in the dual form but in the plural. Plural or dual do not differ in form. Nevertheless, if they are the two covenants, the hands are mentioned in dual form. However, if the powers of God is called his hand – for we call the military might of a king his hand – into your military might, which is your guardian hand, I entrust my spirit. [1]

As we are called to join ourselves with God work in and with the world, we join ourselves with those powers, and in doing so, can be said to become God’s hands (and feet) in the world. That is, we are to find a way to creatively engage God’s work in the world, to become, as it were, God’s instruments, not in the sense of being God’s puppets, but in the sense of being given the grace necessary to work in the world for the sake of its positive transformation. Thus, as the Russian theologian Sergius Bulgakov pointed out, God’s providence works in and through us and with us, giving us the freedom we need to do so in a way which confirms our own subjectivity:

As the subject of Divine Providence, the world is not only a thing or an object in the hands of God – it has its own distinctive existence, given to it by God at Creation, its own distinctive nature, its own distinctive life. And at the same time its created nature does not remain outside  God, because there is no such thing ontologically as extra-divine existence. The world abides in God, although it is not God, and God’s relationship to the world in Divine Providence is defined not as the unilateral action of God on a world lying  outside of Him and foreign to Him, but as the synergy of the Creator with creation. For this, both parties to the synergy must, first of all, possess their own reality and independence, but also mutual connectedness and dependence, yet these are completely absent in all shades of predestination. [2]

J.R.R Tolkien, recognizing the validity of this line of thought, nonetheless feared that we can do so with pride. He wanted to confirm the way God worked in and with him in his work, but he also wanted to make sure he kept humble while doing so:

God grant that this does not sound arrogant – I feel humbler enough in truth and immeasurably weaker and poorer now. The greatness I meant was that of a great instrument in God’s hands – a mover, a doer, even an achiever of great things, a beginner at the very least of large things.[3]

We should be like Tolkien, embracing humility, for it is in and with such humility we can transcend ourselves, transcend our own fallen, false sense of self, which is what we need to do to be truly free subjects who can then continue God’s work in time. We are to engage what we have, to even be creative (or sub-creative) as we do so, but again, doing so as long as we do so in cooperation with (or in synergy with) God’s will. Tolkien felt he had a special task to do, one which he did in his own fashion; he knew he had to do it, it was a part of who and what he was, but he also knew it was still connected with God’s providence and the way God works in and through all of us, so that any greatness he accomplished was his, but his in a way which would not have been possible if he did not have God’s grace elevating and making it the best it can be.

God has no hands and many hands; God has no face and a face which we can engage; God has no feet, and yet is said to walk amongst us. We must always recognize the way we imagine God is not literal, that we look to and try to understand God through analogies and symbols; if we do not keep this in mind, it will be easy for us to fall for all kinds of errors as we take that which is not literal as literal, replacing the invisible, incomprehensible, transcendent God with an idol, one which takes up and presents qualities which often are made from our own image. This is an error which has been made many times throughout history, and because it has, many have been led to think all discussion of who and what God is represents humanity trying to deify itself, to make God in its own image. Those who would deny such a God are right, because such a God is not God; but they are wrong in saying that is the only way God can be and is understood. Apophatic theology takes that insight and transcends it, showing how we can then come to experience the truth of God and express it, and this is exactly the insight which we must embrace if we are to read Scripture and its descriptions of God correctly.

[1] Didymus the Blind, Lectures on the Psalms. Trans. Jonathan Douglas Hicks (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2024), 144.

[2] Sergius Bulgakov, Judas Iscariot – Apostle – Betrayer. Trans. Mike Whitton (No City Listed: Independently Published, 2023), 60.

[3] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Revised and Expanded Edition. Ed. Humphrey Carpenter and Christopher Tolkien (Broadway, NY: William Morrow, 2023), 6 [Letter 5 to G. H. Smith].

 

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2025-04-22T02:08:55-05:00

Last updated on: April 22, 2025 at 2:08 am   By
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The beauty of creation points to the glory of God. Picture Source: Steve Jurvetson From Menlo Park, USA / Wikimedia Commons

We are not to worship creation, but the Creator.  This does not mean we are to ignore the good of creation, nor, especially, to disrespect it. We are not worshiping creation if we look to the world we see, realize its importance for our temporal existence, and do what we can to make sure it remains in good shape. Protecting the environment, taking care of the earth and all its inhabitants, is what we should all be doing. If we disrespect it, if we show it contempt and think we can destroy it, acting like in doing so, we are destroying some idol, we show disrespect to the one who brought it into being, God. If we took a long time creating a work of art, maybe some painting which we have longed to produce, and when it is done, we consider it a masterpiece, we would be more than a little upset if someone came around, took a hatchet to it, and destroyed it. Why, then, are Christians surprised if they are told God is not pleased when they defile the world around them? We have been warned that God’s wrath will be upon those who destroy the earth. Indeed, we have been given the task to be stewards of the earth, working to protect it, for in doing so, we not only protect our own interests (if the environment is destroyed, we will not be able to live) but God’s interests as well. And, as it is a work of God, as it is something which can be compared to a work of art, a work of beauty, which God created, we can look at and contemplate creation, using it as a means to apprehend something of the truth of God:

Those who believe in a personal God, Creator, do not think the Universe is in itself worshipful, though devoted study of it may be one of the ways of honouring Him. And while as living creatures we are (in part) within it and part of it, our ideas of God and ways of expressing them will be largely derived from contemplating the world about us. (Though there is also revelation both addressed to all men and to particular persons.) [1]

This is why creation itself can be said to be a sacrament of God:

The whole universe is, for those who possess purified eyes, a living sacrament, in the broadest sense of the word. In the meeting of the contemplative and God, the material creation not only symbolizes God’s presence but also plays a role in the transfiguring power of God and the contemplative to bring all things into Christ.[2]

Evil seeks to destroy or annihilate creation, but it does not have the power to complete its desire.  God preserves and protects creation, even as God will restore to it what evil had taken away from it in the eschaton, so that the harm it suffered will be healed by God and God’s grace. Annihilationism is the way of evil, preservation and healing is the way of God. When we look at the way our actions, our sins, have defiled the world around us, wounding it, no matter how much harm we have caused, there remains something there, something good behind all the sin, something beautiful for us to see and experience, a beauty which can bring us much joy: “The beauty of the created universe is free from all fault because of these three things – the condemnation of sinners, the proving of the just, and the perfection of the blessed.”[3] The beauty or goodness of creation remains despite sin, and God works to reveal that beauty by taking away the sin of the world – sinners are condemned insofar as sin is condemned, but as Jesus takes on the sin of the world upon himself,  he works to liberate sinners from sin so that they will no longer be sinners, but rather, become one of the just. That is, sinners are condemned by the condemnation of sin, but when the sin is cast off, they are no longer sinners, and so they can become just and perfected with grace. This is possible because, despite all the sin, there was always some goodness in them, something for God to use and perfect with grace.

Therefore, we can look at creation, recognizing in it the goodness and beauty given to it by God, a goodness which remains no matter how much it has been defiled by us and our sin. Just as if a statue was covered in mud might only lead us to see the mud, and perhaps the shape of the stature, with its true worth hidden from sight, that worth would be revealed once it is washed and it would have always been there despite not being seen, so the world around us, even if we cannot perceive its worth, keeps its inherent value, and will reveal it when we wash it clean from our filth. Once we have done so, the world will actually reveal to us many things about God:

The nature of the Essence is invisible but can be known by means of His mysteries. That is to say, those mysteries which <God> wills that they be made known. And they are known by means of meditating on the structure of the universe. <This occurs> especially by continual consideration of God’s Economy in its various revelations, given indeed to inform the diligent mind which inquires faithfully and searches these things assiduously.[4]

Looking to creation, honoring and respecting it, seeking to preserve its goodness from all defilement, does not, therefore, indicate some sort of idolatry; rather, doing all of this is how we honor and respect the one who created it. We should understand the Creator, God, has given us various ways to apprehend various truths about the divine nature by creation; realizing this, using creation as a means to apprehend those truths does not turn creation into an idol, but rather the reverse, for only when we ignore the sacramental, and therefore symbolic, side of creation do we risk becoming idolatrous. We must, therefore, do our part, to take care of creation and respect it, allowing it to be what it was meant to be by God when God created it, instead of ignoring it and its good, allowing it to be destroyed by our indifference.

[1] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Revised and Expanded Edition. Ed. Humphrey Carpenter and Christopher Tolkien (Broadway, NY: William Morrow, 2023), 562 [Letter 310 to Camilla Unwin].

[2] George Maloney, SJ, Prayer of the Heart (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 1981), 181.

[3] St. Augustine, “Of True Religion,” in Augustine: Earlier Writings. trans. John H.S. Burleigh (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1953), 247.

[4] St. Isaac the Syrian, “The Third Part.” Trans. Mary T. Hansbury in An Anthology of Syriac Writers From Qatar in the Seventh Century. Ed. Mario Kozah, Abdulrahim Abu-Husayn, Saif Shaeen Al-Murikhi and Haya Al Thani (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2015), 294 [I.17].

 

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2025-03-17T03:08:40-05:00

Last updated on: March 17, 2025 at 3:08 am   By
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Tom Murphy VII: Eagle and Child Interior – One Of The Places The Inklings Would Meet / Wikimedia Commons

I cannot properly express how influential the Inklings have been on my life. Not only do I enjoy the works they wrote, I have found many of their ideas I have helped shape the way I think and write.  One significant notion of theirs that has had a lasting influence on me was the way they saw myth was to be valued, seen not as some sort of falsehood, but rather as a different way for transcendent truths to be expressed in human conventions. I was under ten when I began reading the fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S, Lewis, and a teen when I started reading their non-fiction and scholarly works. Next, I began reading what other Inklings wrote, starting with Charles Williams and Owen Barfield, and eventually,  the works of those who participated in the Inklings meetings, whether or not they were deemed official members,  including, but not limited to, the works of Warren (Warnie) Lewis, Adam Fox, Hugo Dyson, Lord David Cecil, Nevil Coghill, and finally, John Wain. John Wain was, at one point, a student of C.S. Lewis, but  he became much more, as he became a university professor, literary critic, poet, and author, and it was his love for literature which had him connect with the rest of the Inklings.  While Wain, like the others of the Inklings, believed in the importance of the literary tradition, his literary interests was quite different from most of the Inklings, as he was not interested in the fantastic or mythological stories as much as he was in realistic fiction, the type which he would write throughout his life. It was, in part, because of his different literary tastes, but also, his differing views on life in general (he considered the other Inklings to be too socially conservative), that he would often say he should not be considered an Inkling as much as an associate of theirs who often went to their meetings.  I, myself, disagree with him, for I think it is by being an associate, by being someone  who went to several of their meetings, he was one of the Inklings. The problem is he wanted to essentialize the group, similar to many of their  fans do, which then made him say he did not fit. But it is because he was different than the rest that I believe he was an important member of the group, the kind who could and did act like a foil to the rest, that is, as one of the challengers who helped the group as a whole become better than if everyone  followed the image which has needlessly been given to it (such as all of them being Christian, which was not the case).

I have been slowly reading through the works, especially the fiction of John Wain,  for many years.  While I was lucky and found some of his novels available at my local used bookstore a few years ago, which allowed me to begin my journey through his oeuvre, many of his works have taken me longer to locate and buy. Now, as I am more like Tolkien and Lewis, interested in mythic or fantastic tales, Wain’s novels, if they were written by someone else, would not be the kind which I would have bought and read. I am glad I did. Some of his novels are much better, much more interesting than others, but all of them have had something in them which held my interest. Often, it is not the characters, because, most of his characters represent a kind of person who does not seem to possess a strong moral center, and so, turn out being someone who does things which I find more than questionable, but contemptible (such as having adulterous affairs). Indeed, many times I get a sense that the main character might even be misogynistic, at least to a small degree, as they often treat women more of objects of their desire than anything else. It can difficult to get around that aspect of his novels, especially as I wonder how much of what goes in them reflects some aspect of Wain’s own character and life. But it is not the only thing which happens in his novels. There is much more going on in them than his character’s lustful desires and the way they seek to have them fulfilled, even if that often is a big part of the novel; rather, it is what happens in the rest of the novels, in the situation or context which leads to the protagonist’s romantic interests, where I find John Wain, and his novels, at their best.  For example, I just finished the second novel of his Oxford trilogy, Comedies. The trilogy is about the life of  Peter Leonard,  showing how he got into Oxford in the 1930s, the way he dealt with undergraduate life in Oxford (including his romantic dalliances which lead him to meet his wife), the way he became an Oxford Fellow (don) before the start of World  War II, the lead-up to World War II in Oxford, the way the war changed things, and finally, in the last book (which I have yet to read), what he is like at the end of his career.  The trilogy give great insight to the way things were like at Oxford, and, this is what makes the trilogy  quite fascinating, much more than the particular interests and desires of Peter  Leonard.  Comedies, for example, gives us a glimpse of how Hitler and Mussolini were perceived by the public before World War II began with some of the arguments the dons had concerning Hitler and Mussolini, with one promoting Mussolini by saying he was a man of peace, and anyone who wanted peace would support him, and if one did not, they must want war. The debates are very similar to the kind being had in the United States concerning Putin and Trump, and as such, are very apropos. We are also given a glimpse of the growing awareness that war with Germany was inevitable, with Peter Leonard befriending two Jewish exiles, scholars who had to settle and work at the Oxford University Press instead of teach, scholars who helped give him insight and actually made him concerned about the future of England. It is this element of the book, the representation of what was happening before the war (and  not what happened during the war, which takes up a good portion of the novel as well), which I appreciated the most, and is why I would recommend it to others; however, it is best to read  Where the Rivers Meet, the first book of the trilogy, before Comedies (even if Wain suggested one did not have to), because that is where we are properly introduced to Peter Leonard, his family, and the people he met which continue to have important roles in Comedies. Where the Rivers Meet’s most interesting element is the way it reveals the kind of life had in Oxford in the 1930s, a kind of life which was destroyed by the war, for good  (in some ways) and for ill (in others).

I truly find John Wain to be a necessary counterpoint to Tolkien and Lewis, making his voice an important voice in the Inklings. He, like them, was extremely interest in literature and its value, but unlike them, he represented a rather modern viewpoint, indeed, one which led him to be seen as one of the “Angry Young Men;” his beliefs and ideals were vastly different from Tolkien or Lewis, but again, it is those differences which help make John Wain important. They help make the Inklings into something more than what it is normally treated, as a group of Christian romanticists. One should not expect a Christian message from his works, nor the kinds of high fantasy one gets from Tolkien or Lewis. But what one should expect are interesting, modern situations, texts which highlight key elements of modern society, often the most problematic elements, doing so in a way which is just as tainted as modern society itself. I have only read the first two works of his Oxford Trilogy, and, because of the context, and what they highlight of a way of life which is now no more, I think they work as a great introduction to Wain and his works. Other novels of interest include Hurry On Down, a work which helps explain why Wain was known as one of the Angry Young Men,  for it is about a young man, after finishing his university degree, finding it difficult to make his way in the world, A Winter in The Hills, and The Pardoner’s Tale. Many would recommend his scholarly works, such as his Samuel Johnson: A Biography. He is, for the most part, a neglected figure who I do think should be read with the rest of the Inklings, but also, as a writer independent from them (which, to be sure, is likely why he tried to disclaim membership with the Inklings).

 

* This Is Part XLVIII Of My Personal Reflections And Speculations Series

 

 

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2025-02-21T03:12:57-05:00

Last updated on: February 21, 2025 at 3:12 am   By
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Husain007: Seyyid Hossein Nasr Speaking In Istanbul, 25 May 2024 /Wikimedia Commons

A problem found in many religious traditions lies in the way some of their members try to spread their faith through apologetics, and they end up using poor, simplistic arguments which are relatively easy to dismiss when they are critically examined. Apologetics, which can serve a good, such as when it is used to help explain various beliefs and practices from a particular faith tradition, becomes problematic when it is turned into a kind of pseudo-philosophy or pseudo-theology and apologists think arguments with others is what leads to conversion. When apologists get into debates, thinking if they win a debate, it means they have proven their case, show they do not understand the limits of debates and how people can lose debates, not because they are wrong, but because they do not have enough knowledge to prove they are correct (or they do not have sufficient time to relate that information). Apologists, who win such debates, assume too much about themselves and their arguments; they repeat claims they made in their debates as if they have proven their case, and slowly, many in their faith tradition comes to believe the same. When they encounter someone who knows better, such apologists end up making a mockery of their faith, as they are seen as representatives of their faith tradition and what they say is what all in their faith tradition believes (which of course, is usually not the case, but for outsiders, such apologists tend to be the people they encounter the most, which is why they tend to equate such apologists and their beliefs and arguments with the faith tradition itself).

A common practice for apologists is to try to show how the sacred texts of their own faith tradition reveal facts which science many centuries later would reveal to be true; they suggest that this is proof that their religious texts are divinely inspired. However, such apologists tend not to understand the history of science, and what they claim was impossible to have been known when the text was written is far from true. This is why the audience the text was written for do not show any surprise when such facts are stated in their texts, because they represented something they already knew. Similarly, science is constantly changing, developing a better understanding of the world around us; if we try to equate the science of our age with a particular scripture, we end up encouraging others to reject our scriptures when science learns new facts which leads scientists to contradict and reject old understandings of the world. Seyyed Hosein Nasr saw this as being a significant problem from within the Islamic (and Sufi) tradition, but, the reasons why he says it is troubling be something which Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and members of other religious faiths, should see is true for their own faith tradition as well:

If the defence of Islam is to be based on a set of weak, ever-retreating apologetics whose technique is to make everything fashionable appear as Islamic, it can hardly convince the thoughtful. Moreover, such methods will make Islam appear to the intelligent observer as a second-rate Western ideology. If Islam is presented, for example, as socialism or rationalism, then the thoughtful modern man who stands outside of the world of faith will seek the purer form of socialism and rationalism in the Western philosophies and ideologies themselves, rather than in their Islamic imitation.[1]

Thus, for Christians, Christianity should not be seen merely as a form of capitalism, socialism, rationalism, philosophy, or the like, for, when it is seen to be one of those things, then people will question the need for the religious and mythic elements, cast them aside, and take on the secular form with ease. Of course, we must not deny the way religions can connect themselves to elements of various scientific or philosophical or economic positions, because truth should not contradict truth, but it is important for us to understand the distinctions.  Religious adherents can learn from secular, non-religious sources, even those which are seen often in contention with religion itself, but they must do so in a way  that they take what is good from those positions and adapts them to fit to the greater, transcendent truth revealed in their religious faith. When this is done, it must not be done merely to  make religion popular, but to help religion do what it seeks to do, to apprehend and learn from the greater truth. Thus, Nasr further wrote:

One cannot harmonize the Quran and science simply by equating such and such a verse of the Quran with a particular scientific discovery which moreover soon will become outmoded. The Quran does not provide a detailed science of things but the principles of all knowledge. [2]

Christians, likewise, must not try to do this.  Sadly, when many Christians agree with this assessment, they do so for the wrong reason: they reject what science teaches; others, of course, do accept what science teaches and understand the limitations of apologetics, however, their work usually ends up far less popular, as it is far less sensational, and so far less influential upon those who should listen to them.  Christians (and believers in other religious traditions) should accept that their sacred texts are not scientific texts; looking for scientific knowledge from them misses the point. Their sacred texts are meant to teach transcendent truths, truths which should shape their world view, giving them a hermeneutic to coordinate what they learn throughout their lives, including what they learn from the sciences. So long as we engage a fundamental interpretative error with our texts, trying to make them into something they are not, seeking science out of books which are not scientific, non-Christians will  easily find examples in our scriptures where science shows what is said to have happened could not have happened as described. One that happens, they can easily dismiss our religious scriptures, and with it, our faith. Christians need to realize that our texts, and the truths in them, should be open to what is learned from the sciences, and not be treated as rivals to science, recognizing the different domains which are being engaged by religion and science.  Al-Ghazālī’s warning should always be kept in mind:

The greatest thing in which the atheists rejoice is for the defender of religion to declare that these [astronomical demonstrations] and their like are contrary to religion. Thus, the [atheist’s] path for refuting religion becomes easy if the likes [of the above argument for defending religion] are rendered a condition [for its truth]. [3]

Apologists often act like they are saving their religion by their arguments, and if they are not heeded, their religious will likely lose a great number of its adherents if not end up being destroyed.  If that is the case, one can wonder, is their religious faith worth saving?  For, as Marsilio Ficino pointed out, we should understand it is God, not us, and no one else, who protects, and preserves the place of religion in the world:  “This religion, therefore, which has God as its champion and defender, can never be destroyed, even if it should be poorly practised by its own and cruelly assailed by its foes.” [4] To be sure, there is room for apologetics, as there is room for theology, but it must be understood what the role should be: it should be used to help explain what people do not understand of a particular faith instead of being seen as an enterprise in which people can and will prove the absolute truth of their faith to others. Apologetics should humble, following J.R.R. Tolkien in his letter to Camilla Unwin by offering simple, little answers, knowing that the greater answers lies beyond us and is found in and with God alone:

But these are only answers to the smaller question. To the larger there is no answer, because that requires a complete knowledge of God, which is unattainable. If we ask why God included us in his Design, we can really say no more than because He Did.[5]

[1] Seyyed Hosein Nasr, Sufi Essays (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1972), 52 [Revelation, Intellect and Reason in the Quran].

[2] Seyyed Hosein Nasr, Sufi Essays, 56 [Revelation, Intellect and Reason in the Quran].

[3] Al-Ghazālī, The Incoherence of the Philosophers. Trans. Michael E. Marmura (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2000), 7.

[4] Marsilio Ficino, On the Christian Religion. Trans. Dan Attrell, Brett Bartlett, and David Porreca (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022), 74.

[5] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Revised and Expanded Edition. Ed. Humphrey Carpenter and Christopher Tolkien (Broadway, NY: William Morrow, 2023), 561 [Letter 310 to Camilla Unwin].

 

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N.B.:  While I read comments to moderate them, I rarely respond to them. If I don’t respond to your comment directly, don’t assume I am unthankful for it. I appreciate it. But I want readers to feel free to ask questions, and hopefully, dialogue with each other. I have shared what I wanted to say, though some responses will get a brief reply by me, or, if I find it interesting and something I can engage fully, as the foundation for another post. I have had many posts inspired or improved upon thanks to my readers.

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