Padres+
Following is another selection of exchanges from Christianity Today in
regard to Tolkien.
I realize the limitations of the understanding of these letter writers in
regard to the Catholic faith. That is the point of my posting snippets from
these discussions.
Millions of theatre-goers will see the films and reflect, perhaps for the
first time on the themes to which Tolkien and C.S.Lewis devoted their
efforts. The the revival of interest in Tolkien that occured in the 1980's
provided me with opportunities to talk to my own children. I didn't have to
point out to them the relationship between Lord of the Rings and Scripture.
They immediately got it.
This is an opportunity to have common ground to talk with a generation that
is absent from many churches today.
Charles+
More from Christianity Today
----------------------------------------
Does The Lord of the Rings Teach Salvation By Works?
The authors of Tolkien's Ordinary Virtues and J. R. R. Tolkien's Sanctifying
Myth talk about whether Tolkien was too ignorant of evil and other subjects.
A conversation between Brad Birzer and Mark Eddy Smith | posted 12/19/2002
This is part two of a three-part conversation between two authors whose
books discuss the faith of J. R. R. Tolkien and the religious values
underpinning The Lord of the Rings. Part one appeared on our website
yesterday.
Bradley J. Birzer is assistant professor of history at Hillsdale College in
Michigan, where he specializes in the history of the American West, and
related topics. His book is , J. R. R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth:
Understanding Middle-earth
Mark Eddy Smith is a graphic designer at InterVarsity Press, which published
his book, Tolkien's Ordinary Virtues: Exploring the Spiritual Themes of The
Lord of the Rings, issued earlier this year.
* * *
From: Brad Birzer
To: Mark Eddy Smith
Dear Mark,
Thanks for the great response. I agree with you completely regarding Faerie.
We are inadequate to speak or write about it, as it's beyond us. In the
modern world, Tolkien did get as close as anyone in describing it. I do,
however, think we could go back to the saints and mystics of history and
find many who also described it accurately.
Each of the New Testament writers had an intimate understanding of Faerie.
As Tolkien wrote in his brilliant academic essay, "On Fairy-Stories," "The
gospel contains a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces
all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels—peculiarly
artistic, beautiful, and moving: 'mythical' in their perfect, self-contained
significance….But this story has entered history and the primary world; the
desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of
creation."
For Tolkien, as with all Christians, God's story ("God's spell") reaches its
highest fulfillment with the Incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ.
As Tolkien concludes, "To reject it leads either to sadness or to wrath."
This, I think, ties into your questions regarding grace/faith/works and
Tolkien and Lewis. The Roman Catholic understanding of salvation is
certainly complex. Though Catholic theology argues that one is saved only by
grace (and sanctified by works, inspired/moved by grace), the question of
how or why an individual originally accepts that God-given faith remains
unanswered in any concrete way. While the purer Augustinians lean toward the
predestinarian side and the purer Thomists toward the free-will side,
orthodox Catholic theology embraces neither extreme. The answer of
salvation, according to the Counter-Reformation Council of Trent, resides
somewhere in the unexplained middle:
That they who sin had been cut off from God, may be disposed through his
quickening and helping grace to convert themselves to their own
justification by freely assenting to and cooperating with that grace, so
that, while God touches the heart of man through the illumination of the
Holy Ghost, man himself neither does absolutely nothing while receiving that
inspiration, since he can also reject it, nor yet is he able by his own free
will and without the face of God to move himself to justice in his sight.
Tolkien wrestled with this great Catholic dilemma the entirety of his adult
life. In a letter to his son Christopher, he wrote that a soul has free
will, but "God is (so to speak) also behind us, supporting [and] nourishing
us." Specifically, Tolkien noted, God supports each of us individually
through a guardian angel. "Faith is an act of will," Tolkien wrote to his
son Michael, but quickly added that will is "inspired by love."
Additionally, Tolkien wrote, "faith is not a single moment of final
decision: it is a permanent indefinitely repeated act."
But, the differences between Tolkien and Lewis were more cultural, I think,
than theological. As Warnie Lewis explained about his brother, he was first
and foremost an Ulsterman. Orange suited him far better than Green.
Certainly, in many way, Lewis accepted fundamental tenets of
Catholicism—especially the belief in purgatory. Lewis's understanding of it,
however, is quite different than the Catholic understanding. For Lewis, one
could go either to heaven or hell from purgatory. From the Catholic
perspective, one can only go to heaven from purgatory. It is, in essence, a
process of purifying fire (1 Cor. 3:10-15).
The Catholic understanding of sanctification, as Tolkien believed it, also
explains his reluctance to know much—if anything—regarding evil. The more a
person knows about evil, the less he knows about Good. And I would argue
that one of the most brilliant aspects of The Lord of the Rings is Tolkien's
ability to glorify Good, something very difficult in the modern world. As I
mentioned in the first letter, modernity assaults us. It assaults us
everywhere and in almost everything. I believe, along with the Christian
Humanists, that this weakens our souls, as it diminishes our communication
(prayer) to God. When we get back on the right path—as we forget our own
sinful wills, and embrace grace—we do so at a lower level than when we left
the path, having to retrace much of what we have already accomplished. I
think of Dante in the Purgatorio. When someone recites his poetry to him, he
listens and falls in love with himself, only to realize moments later that
his pilgrimage to heaven—the most important journey he will ever take—has
halted.
Sam, I think, provides the best example of the sanctification of the humble.
Though he would much rather be with Rosie, his garden, his pipe, his mug, he
knows that as a true person, he must lay down the plow and pick up the
sword. The goal is not to kill, but to defend, so that he and his kind can
live again in peace, comfort, and freedom—a freedom not to do anything, but,
as St. Paul tells us in his letter to the Galatians, the freedom to do what
is right. Sam also knows that he himself may die in the effort. "There is no
greater love than this, that a man should lay down his life for his
friends." (John 15:13)
St. John was Tolkien's patron saint, but he also served as a great
inspiration for the character of Sam. Just as St. John was the only one of
the twelve to stand with our Lord at the foot of the cross, Sam remains
faithful to Frodo, even to the Cracks of Doom.
Thanks,
Brad
* * *
From: Mark Eddy Smith
To: Brad Birzer
Dear Brad,
Thanks for shedding some light for me on the Catholic understanding of
salvation. It is indeed complex! And ultimately unfathomable. But it's good
to attempt to sound its depths. One of the things I love about Tolkien is
that he attempted to sound such depths not abstractly, but through story,
through the imagined lives of specific people. The brilliance of this method
lies in the fact that stories are not intended to be normative. Another
person's journey may be quite different, but either through contrast or
comparison, the characters Tolkien created can help us understand ourselves
and each other exactly because they are themselves, single and unique, and
generalizations drawn from their experiences must only be made with great
care.
I love the fact that characters such as Aragorn and Faramir and hobbits in
general (even Ringwraiths) appeared in Tolkien's writing process from an
unknown source, and that he followed their stories until he figured out who
they were. At the Prancing Pony, according to what I've read, Tolkien was as
nonplussed as the hobbits to find a hooded, roguish-looking man with long
legs smoking in a corner. The stranger turned out to be Aragorn, the heir of
kings, because that's who he was, not because Tolkien needed a King
Arthur-type figure for his plot. Tolkien knew that if he surrendered his
will to the process of sub-creation, and worked diligently to get the true
story down as he was receiving it, then it would perforce be imbued with the
truths he believed most strongly.
I have to admit I'm uncomfortable with your (and Tolkien's) profound
distaste for modernity and refusal to look too closely at evil. It is
certainly possible that the reason for my discomfort lies in the fact that I
am too accepting of modernity and too comfortable with evil, and I agree
that knowledge of evil does not help us to overcome it. But my understanding
of the Fall (which I picked up during a brief stint at Wheaton College) is
that, having partaken of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam
and Eve (and through them, all of us) doomed themselves to being able to
understand the good from the vantage point of evil alone. Of course, now
that Christ has come into the world, our fallen natures are beginning to be
redeemed as his grace works in us and through us. And, oh my gosh, I am so
out of my depth.
So, how about that Sam, huh? He comforts me when I'm feeling untutored. One
of the biggest treats of reading your book was the glimpses you gave of the
extracanonical Tolkien, particularly the intended epilogue to The Lord of
the Rings, featuring Sam's life as Mayor of Hobbiton and his visit with
Aragorn and Arwen, which Tolkien excised because he thought it might seem
trite. In this epilogue Sam's many children respond to him the same way
hobbit-children of previous generations responded to Gandalf, underscoring
the profound ways in which Sam's adventures transformed him. I heartily
agree with you that he is the true hero of the story, its heart, and the
true successor to Bilbo.
One of Sam's chief gifts is his understanding that he is part of a story.
This is not, of course, postmodern irony on Tolkien's part, as if Sam
understood he was a character in a novel, but rather a true statement about
the relationship between a creature and his Creator. We in the 21st century
are part of that same story, and Sam reassures me that we don't have to
understand intellectually the complexities of the story, so long as we
understand implicitly the aspects that make a story good. These include
loyalty, the willingness to walk open-eyed into danger, risking death for
the sake of a friend, having the ability to accept our smallness, and the
courage never to accept defeat. Intellectual understanding and wisdom may
come in time, but they are not essential to performing well the tasks set
before us.
I apologize for copping out on the discussion about the evils of modernity,
but it really does seem like the topic is beyond me, and the more I dwell on
it, the more I feel I am delving into the arts of the enemy myself, and
perhaps losing my focus on God, and pulling the conversation farther away
from Middle-earth. I guess my biggest problem is with the assertion that
modernity qua modernity is evil. Modernity, at least in my understanding of
it, is too abstract a thing to be labeled. There are too many exceptions to
prove the rule.
Finally, I'd like to mention the movie. In J. R. R. Tolkien's Sanctifying
Myth you speak glowingly of Peter Jackson's first installment. My own
appreciation for it was enhanced by your analysis. It was indeed glorious,
and captured some of the wonder I felt when I first discovered Middle-earth.
But I have one bone to pick with it: I do not believe for a moment that
Aragorn would willingly have let Frodo journey toward Mordor alone. I have
other quibbles, as is my duty as an LOTR fan, but this seems unforgivable.
What do you think?
Yours,
Mark
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