Avallónnë. Fifth Age. - One of the good things about owning and having read so many books (30+) by or about Tolkien and Middle-earth is having the immediate opportunity to re-read them from time to time. Upon doing so, I find that I have forgotten some things while other observations of the various authors, unimportant to me in the past, have now taken on a new perspective - or, rather, I have taken on a new, broader, and/or deeper perspective.

I recently picked up Bradley Birzer’s 2002 work, J.R.R. Tolkien’s Sanctifying Myth and began wandering through his insights into Eä and Arda. At the time of writing, Birzer was (among other positions) Professor of History at Hillsdale College in Michigan. Included in this post are comments from Joseph Pearce, author of Tolkien: Man and Myth, who wrote the Foreword to Birzer’s book:

According to Tolkien’s own ’scale of significance,’ expressed candidly in a letter written shortly after The Lord of the Rings was published, his Catholic faith was the most important, or most ’significant,’ influence on the writing of the work. It is, therefore, not merely erroneous but patently perverse to see Tolkien’s epic as anything other than a specifically Christian myth.”

Professor Birzer grapples with the very concept of ‘myth’ and proceeds to a discussion of Tolkien’s philosophy of myth, rooted as it is in the relationship between Creator and creature, and, in consequence, the relationship between Creation and sub-creation. . . . Tolkien’s epic goes beyond mere ‘fantasy’ to the deepest realms of metaphysics. Far from being an escapist fantasy, The Lord of the Rings is revealed as a theological thriller.

It is perhaps noteworthy that most of the self-styled ‘experts’ amongst the literati who have queued up to sneer contemptuously at The Lord of the Rings are outspoken champions of cultural deconstruction and moral relativism . . . For most modern critics a myth is merely another word for a lie or a falsehood, something which is intrinsically not true. For Tolkien, myth had virtually the opposite meaning. It was the only way that certain transcendent truths could be expressed in intelligible form . . .

“Integral to Tolkien’s philosophy of myth was the belief that creativity is a mark of God’s divine image in Man. . . . Only God can create in the primary sense, i.e., by bringing something into being out of nothing. Man, however, can sub-create by molding the material of Creation into works of beauty. Music, art, and literature are all acts of sub-creation expressive of the divine essence in man.

[T]he evil powers in The Lord of the Rings are specified as direct descendants of Tolkien’s Satan, rendering impossible, or at any rate implausible, anything but a Christian interpretation of the book. In the impenetrable blackness of the Dark Lord and his abysmal servants, the Ringwraiths, we feel the objective reality of Evil. Sauron and his servants confront and affront us with the nauseous presence of the Real Absence of goodness. In his depiction of the potency of evil, Tolkien presents the reader with a metaphysical black hole far more unsettling than Milton’s proud vision of Satan as ‘darkness visible.’

Tolkien is, however, equally powerful in his depiction of goodness. In the unassuming humility of the hobbits we see the exaltation of the humble. In their reluctant heroism we see a courage ennobled by modesty. In the immortality of the elves, and the sadness and melancholic wisdom that immortality evokes in them, we receive an inkling that man’s mortality is a gift of God, a gift that ends his exile in mortal life’s ‘vale of tears’ and enables him, in death, to achieve a mystical union with the Divine beyond the reach of Time.

“In Gandalf we see the archetypal prefiguration of a powerful Prophet or Patriarch, a seer who beholds a vision of the Kingdom beyond the understanding of men. . . .

“In the true, though exiled, kingship of Aragorn we see glimmers of the hope for a restoration of truly ordained, i.e., Catholic, authority. The person of Aragorn represents the embodiment of the Arthurian and Jacobite yearning - the visionary desire for the ‘Return of the King’ after eons of exile. . . .

And, of course, in the desire for the Return of the King, we have the desire of all Christians for the Second Coming of Christ, the True King and Lord of all.”

I would take issue with Pearce on at least one point, i.e., the role of Gandalf. Pearce’s description of the wizard as “Prophet and patriarch, a seer who beholds a vision of the Kingdom beyond the understanding of men” would seem to be more true of Elrond Peredhil. Gandalf is a more fitting picture of the role and activity of angels in the world or, perhaps better, the ministry of the Holy Spirit in believers as He encourages, strengthens, and empowers Christians in the battle against the Kingdom of Satan.



Namárië.