When I first read The Hobbit and LOTR I didn't notice anything but the parallels were quite clear when I read the Silmarillion. As I have learned over the years about the various sources of inspiration Tolkien had for The Legendarium, I've become increasingly impressed at how he wove everything together.
Tolkien Geek: You are correct. Tolkien was profoundly Catholic, i.e., what is now called "traditionalist." He held all the doctrines of the Catholic Church, even going so far as to adhere to the old liturgical form (the Latin Mass) when Rome and the local parish had abandoned their legacy. The Professor's adherence to Catholic theology is most often shown by the symbolic "types" he uses, i.e., the people or items in the plot that have a theological dimension. Here are just a few: *Gandalf - Tolkien admitted in his letters that Gandalf was an angel. If we look at Gandalf's method of dealing with the people's of ME, he guides, he encourages, he enlightens, he even, to some extent, pushes. But he never forces the will, nor does he use his "angelic" power unless absolutely necessary. *Galadriel - Tolkien as much as admitted that Galadriel was an image of the Blessed Virgin in her intervention to assist the Fellowship and her immaculate appearance and bearing. Particularly, she gives gifts, as the Blessed Virgin dispenses the graces of God. *Lembas - The elven waybread, which would sustain one for many days, was a symbol of the Eucharist/holy communion. The more one depended on it and no other food, the more it would sustain life. This is the what the Eucharist does spiritually. Tolkien admitted this in an interview, coyly acknowledging that the Lady who gave lembas to the Fellowship must be the Blessed Virgin. *Varda/Elbereth - This is Tolkien's image of the Blessed Virgin as the one who answers prayers from the wayfarers still on their journey. A Elbereth Gilthoniel O Elbereth Starkindler, o menel palan-díriel, from heaven gazing afar, le nallon sí di'nguruthos! to thee I cry now beneath the shadow of death! A tiro nin, Fanuilos! O look towards me, Everwhite! We still remember, we who dwell In this far land beneath the trees The starlight on the Western Seas. The reference here to "starkindler" is reminiscent of the Virgin being called "Star of the Sea." "Everwhite" (or in the books, "Snow White") is an obvious reference to the Virgin's immaculate purity. Keep up the good work, Geek! Namarie.
18:14 Evil being boring is actually in Chesterton too. When he explains why Molochism occurred (Everlasting Man), he speaks of men who are so bored they need a touch of evil to stab themselves into sensation, and when he has Fr Brown convert Flambeau (first series of short stories) it's with the perspective that evil gets narrower and narrower, more and more shut in - even without taking prison into account. The idea of needing higher and higher doses to get an effect.
Good stuff as ever. I think that Frodo being unable to destroy the ring , but being saved by providence is an overtly Christian view, that redemption is found only through gods no man can achieve it. I think this is mentioned in one of his letters. Thanks and keep up the good work.
Really appreciated how you approached this huge topic looking at the ways Middle-earth could be said to be a religious or Catholic work. There's the actual role of divinity within the story, the characters, roles and images that seem to have been inspired by religious sources, and then the final idea that the philosophy Tolkien applied to Middle-earth rested on the same assumptions as his theology. ...it would be interesting, in light of that, to examine some of the places where he included ideas that aren't really associated with Christian theology, such as the reincarnation of Elves and Dwarves.
I went to an Opus Dei school and can say that Tolkien books were highly popular among professors and students. There was a clear sync / vibe between Tolkien's writings and their general view of the world. Don't know if it was that school in particular, or something popular among Catholics of that org (I'm not of any religion). But I'm grateful that they introduced me to Tolkien's universe.
JBP talks about how we admire heroes and strive to be like them, and that Christ is the ultimate hero. The tie-in to LOTR is that soooo many characters in LOTR are heroes in their own lane. It’s quite obvious with Frodo and Aragorn, and also of course with Faramir, Boromir, Gandalf, Eomir, Eowyn, Sam, Merry, Pippin, Treebeard, and many others. I love that each character can be a hero depending on if they choose goodness, honor, love, and bravery. Side note: Men of the West did a video on Bill the Pony and how he is a hero. He laughed through the whole thing, because it’s such a silly idea to think of Bill as a hero, and yet, he WAS! How sweet that Tolkien created a world in which even a pony can brave and loyal and tough and contribute to a righteous cause, saving the world, in a powerful way.
17:53 In Aquinas, badness or evil is the negation of a _due_ good. A stone not seeing involves no badness or evil, since sight is not due to a stone. A man not seeing involves him suffering the evil of blindness. Since normally, in a man eyesight _is_ due.
The guy who wrote that article is a Euphoric Atheist type, his entire list of articles are him yelling into the void in various forms of "Checkmate, X-ians!" Great video by the by.
Lucifer, (Latin: Lightbearer) Greek Phosphorus, or Eosphoros, in classical mythology, the morning star (i.e., the planet Venus at dawn); personified as a male figure bearing a torch, Lucifer had almost no legend, but in poetry he was often herald of the dawn.
Earendil also appears as the evening star, in 'The Mirror of Galadriel'. Of course the planet Venus has a completely opposite significance as Queen of Heaven, e.g. the Babylonian Ishtar or the virgin Mary. Tolkien definitely tried to write out pagan survivals, in Appendix D going so far as to re-name the days of the week. He is also very down on astrology. I have got a theory that, regardless of the received etymology (far see-er), the Palantiri actually stem from the word "planetary", which was a common term for things astrological. There was a particular fancy that the planets could actually see things on Earth e.g. Hudibras 2,3,715ff.
The idea of Frodo, Gandalf, and Aragorn as three kinds of Christ-figures goes back (at least) to an essay I read in the late 1960s. I can't now remember either the title or the author, but I suspect it was contained in _Tolkien and the Critics_ (ed. Neil Isaacs and Rose Zimbardo, 1968). (If I still have a copy of that, it's mislaid somewhere.) In the 1968 form, Frodo was explained not as "priest" but as "suffering servant" (from Isaiah 53 and the other "servant songs" in the latter part of that book). Many people do explain the Isaianic servant as a priestly figure, but if you focus solely on what is in Isaiah's poems and not on all the aspects of priesthood you can think of, it seems to me the idea makes a lot of sense. You said that Frodo doesn't bear "sin," but he does bear a thing that greatly promotes evil, so I think the parallel is still good. Even though Frodo succumbs to temptation at the last minute and is not actually killed by his burden, I think this only means he is not actually Christ himself; his mission succeeds anyway because his mercy and forgiveness for Gollum give providence material to work with, and these traits are of course key to Christ's role as the Servant.
🤲J.R.R Tolkien era cristiano catolico romano ademas que le gustaba el folkor europeo antiguo,asi nacieron sus obras. El es un escritor brillante y sus obras dan fe y esperanza las ultimas que se debe perder en los momemtos mas oscuros. Pues que los de Amazon se atwngan a las consecuencias si no respetaron nada de su obra y la religión que practicaba Tolkien.
I thoroughly enjoyed your comments. I've heard friends also comment on the Mariology throughout his writings from almost all of the Valier to Galadriel and Eowyn.
This is an excellent summary - clear, very little editorializing - just focused on the topic. Great video! I can't remember where I heard the prophet/priest/king before - but this is an excellent point to raise.
Although I agree with you, Tolkien did parallel a lot of his stuff with Catholicism but you could also make a lengthy video on the parallels with Pagan Legends and characters.. There are a lot of mirror similarities between Norse Mythology and Tolkien's Middle Earth and the characters and tales within
There are a lot of books about the subject, but Tolkien 'sanctified' myth. He took noble pagan virtues such as raw will & courage and recontextualised them into a Catholic meaning
@@crimsonthumos3905 right, I just picked up the Canterbury Leather Bound Classic edition of David Days 'An Encyclopedia of Tolkien' and he shows the parallels to a T.. I read The Hobbit and LoTR in grade school and I'm 31 now just getting really into Tolkien and the whole Middle Earth saga.. I'm hooked lol
Critics of LOTR often explicitly cite its overtly Christian elements as their reason for not liking it or Tolkien's legendarium more broadly. I think the only people who really dispute that it's a work of Christian and Catholic inspiration are neo-Pagans who want to claim that its some kind of work of Germanic/ Norse mythology, which isn't untrue, but also ignores the metaphysics and moral grounding of Tolkien's universe for dubious reasons.
I think it is mainly the creation of the world, which is similiar to christian mythology: Eru/Illuvatar as god, the ainur/valar/maiar as angels, and Melkor/Morgoth as the most powerfull angel which falls and gets satan/the devil. But Tolkien manages to fit northern/greek/roman mythology into this monotheistic creation, too, by putting a 14 valar pantheon to valinor, which reminds of the olymp/asgard. Other parts of the legendarium you could discover christian/catholic motives ... well, yes, you could ... and you could read something else in them, too ... But thats just IMHO. :)
Always enjoy your videos and I think for any author or creator in any medium it would be challenging to not let your beliefs influence your creation. CS Lewis wrote Narnia as a way for children of all ages to understand Biblical concepts, Tolkien just wanted to create a world for his Elvish language that as a byproduct of his beliefs has Christian undertones.
Gandalf always seems to know what's up. He has doubts occasionally, but has confidence that things will work out to the good of the Free Peoples in the end. Whenever Providence presents an opportunity, Gandalf is always willing to act on faith and prompt others to action and faithfulness as well. He may not have a direct line to Eru, but Eru has a direct line to him, if only through intuition. Other prominent Christian Themes: 1. Even the most gifted and Faithful of men can turn demonic in worship and behavior though pride, envy, and greed. None of us are perfect. No one is immune. We all stumble and fall even in paradise. 2. Bearing one another's burdens. Whether its Aragorn and Boromir on his deathbed or a piggyback ride up Mount Doom Tolkien's heroes take up one another's burdens of duty and grief. 3. The Supremacy of Mercy. Grace, Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Renewal are the heart of the Christian faith. They also underlie the whole Legendarium: the rescue of Maedhros, the pleas of Earendil, and of cours, Frodo sparing Gollum.
12:55 Mostly Catholics believe that Christ's millennium is now ongoing since 33 (or whenever it was, Belloc says 29). And that Christ is ruling politically through His Church over Catholic societies. There seems however not to be a direct ban on part of the Church universal against taking the millennium as upcoming, and Tolkien held that view.
11:46 _"the ring doesn't represent sin"_ In a way yes, insofar as the temptation to use the ring is somewhat parallel to temptation in general. Obviously, in that respect Frodo would still be a weak symbol, since he sometimes _did_ use the ring.
In their edition of On Fairy-stories, Verlyn Flieger and Douglas Anderson point to the influence of Andrew Lang's "higher mythology". (OFS was originally the Andrew Lang Lecture; Lang is best known for the Blue and other Fairy Books, which Tolkien knew from a child). Tolkien comments: "Something really “higher” is occasionally glimpsed in mythology: Divinity, the right to power (as distinct from its possession), the due worship; in fact “religion.” Andrew Lang said, and is by some still commended for saying, that mythology and religion (in the strict sense of that word) are two distinct things that have become inextricably entangled, though mythology is in itself almost devoid of religious significance." -- OFS 33 This might seem puzzling. Isn't mythology, e.g. Greek or Norse, almost entirely about religion? To put it delicately, yes, but not Lang and Tolkien's kind of religion. The "higher mythology" was an explanation of folk-tale i.e. fairy-story. It was a form of natural theology, defined as "religion ... without revelation" (Chambers). But as Lang might be conceding, the evidence is unsatisfactory. On the other hand Tolkien's words recall another of his preoccupations: Power. Did his early life, especially the suffering of his mother, offend the child's sense of justice; sparking his insistence that power must be divinely sanctioned?
A very interesting and lucid commentary of Tolkien's stances! Tolkien in many ways was a Catholic, but unlike CS Lewis, he was in no sense a proselytizing Christian author. But nonetheless he was a Christian one, something that can be seen throughout his work. As you point out, both in the Silmarillion and the Athrabeth, you will encounter clear cut theological claims in Tolkien's work. But likewise in less obvious places, already taken up in this comment section: topics such as Elven reincarnation and the Creation of the Dwarves are also mainly influenced by Thomist and Augustinian theology, focusing on the immortality of the soul and the body and how, for elves, the body is linked to the soul and vice versa. In the Ainulindale, in his metaphysics he clearly is inspired by Thomist theology. In The Nature of Middle-Earth, a lot of Tolkien's more theological musings are present - but in a sense he was a lay-person and it seems like he felt a bit uneasy to fully incorporate Christian theology into his work - here he differs a lot from CS Lewis. Even when Tolkien is seemingly a Platonist (e.g., the Athrabeth) he often is one from a Catholic (may it be Augustinian and Thomist) standpoint. He might be fundamentally Catholic, but I think often, only readers who know some Chirstian theology might pick up on these themes. Thank you for a great video on the topic!
I confess, I don't know much of Thomas Aquinas. However I agree there are traces of St Augustine, particularly 'Of Christian Doctrine' (De Doctrina Christiana, hereafter DDC). For example, Augustine's matter-of-fact acceptance of angels: "For if we find our happiness complete in one another, we stop short upon the road, and place our hope of happiness in man or angel. Now the proud man and the proud angel arrogate this to themselves, and are glad to have the hope of others fixed upon them. But, on the contrary, the holy man and the holy angel, even when we are weary and anxious to stay with them and rest in them, set themselves to recruit our energies with the provision which they have received of God for us or for themselves; and then urge us thus refreshed to go on our way towards Him" -- DDC 1, 33 Gandalf is plainly a holy angel. Saruman is a proud angel who like Sauron before him becomes a false one (an outright instrument of the Devil, cf DDC 2,23). What is worse Saruman is a "neighbour" (to Treebeard). Curiously St Augustine specifies that angels are indeed neighbours whom we should love (DDC 1,30). All with the caveat, these are story-themes - NOT to be taken literally. I agree, Tolkien kept Platonism at a distance though it does creep in. Augustine is pretty definite in rejecting the Platonist claims on Christianity: The saint calls in evidence St Ambrose's "discovery" that Plato had visited Egypt at the very time the prophet Jeremiah was there. Similar considerations apply to Pythagoras: "And thus, when we reflect upon the dates, it becomes much more probable that those philosophers learnt whatever they said that was good and true from our literature, than that the Lord Jesus Christ learnt from the writings of Plato - a thing which it is the height of folly to believe." (DDC 2,28)
I was brought up Catholic and one of the main massages I got from it is that we (Catholics) are only happy when we're suffering. I read the almost constant grief in The Silmarillion and it reeks of that sentiment.
Very interesting and thought provoking overview, thank you. Your explanation of why the works are 'fundamentally' Christian and Catholic was really well expressed ie that the foundations of Tolkien's world are fundamentally the same as in the Catholic world view. One aspect I have wondered about a lot in terms of good and evil in Middle Earth is how animals and the land itself take on those aspects, or at least Morgoth and Sauron are able to corrupt them in some way to make them evil. Sauron tortures the earth itself we are told at the Council of Elrond. Conversely, when Frodo wades across the Nimrodel, it seems to have a spiritually restorative effect on him. I am not sure whether this idea of good and evil embedded in the physical places themselves in found in Christian theology or is an instinct particular to Tolkien.
There are some Christian groups who believe in things like relics that are holy and such, and of course many Christians go on pilgrimages to holy sites, but I think Tolkien adds a unique flavor to the idea by making it Elvish or corrupted by a Dark Lord.
Yes, the idea that things can sort of carry a good or bad sort of vibration is there in the idea of relics, that's true, or maybe that some sites are sacred.... interesting 🙂
Another top-notch video to be honest I prefer to just look at the Legendarium as mythology/fantasy and not too Christian, though some of the references can be interesting or are undeniable. There is also the healing touch of Aragorn that though a nod to medieval kings' healing touch myths and stories, could also be a nod to the Christian tales of Jesus and his disciples healing.
In his works, I think it is extremely difficult to separate Tolkien's Catholicism from his paganism or more precisely his love of Old English, Norse and Germanic mythology. It doesn't help that much of the source material for these mythologies that Tolkien knew were actually written by Catholics like Snorri Sturluson. Of course, all the commentary that Tolkien gives outside the stories themselves is pegged to official Catholic doctrine. Even so, Tolkien splits hairs to keep both elements like the fine line between Valar as angels and Valar as gods (little 'g'). He wants to tell a pagan story of gods, heroes and common men in the mode of Beowulf or the Odyssey, but still keep it in the circle of accepted doctrine. This is the real tension in his work between his boyhood dreams of pagan heroes and his deeply held adult belief in Catholicism.
I think the point is you can still draw influence and admire pre-Christian culture as a Christian. After all Christians perserved many literary works from that time, the problem is the practices that are opposed to it, like idol worship, human sacrifice etc. Tolkien sort of "baptizes" the pre Christian European mythologies in his work. His creation myth for example is completely different than the pagan ones, where the gods are created being who establish the world after usurping a more ancient creature than them.
@@aurochs1 The point is that this "baptizing" creates a tension between the work and the interpretation of the work both by the reader and by Tolkien himself. Like a lot of modern authors, Tolkien retcons his work in later commentaries which sometimes contradicts how a naïve reader would read the work. Perhaps even a bit like how later commentaries can occasionally retcon scripture.
Quite interesting. Thanks. Have you thought about hope? TLoR to me is so much about hope, and the sins about hope ( despair and pride). Do a video about this.
Tolkien's work is based in part on his Catholic beliefs, which are evident in the fundamentally Catholic mythology of Middle-Earth. In Tolkien's worldview, the material world is secondary to the spiritual world, and the battle between good and evil is a spiritual battle. This theme is most clearly expressed in The Lord of the Rings, where Sauron represents evil while Frodo and the other characters represent good.
Ignoring the fact that the guy who wrote the article is a total clown, the stories told by Tolkien are clearly inspired by his religion. You already mention fate and free will in this video. The tales definitely read like Norse or Old Irish Pagan myths more than they read like a Christian story from the Bible. But that’s mostly because Tolkien was vaguely interested in making a mythology for England, not because he was some secret phony Christian. Anyone aiming to make a mythological pre-Christian secondary world (that exists long before the world we know) is probably gonna create something that bears a passing similarity to the Táin Bó Cuailnge or one of the Norse Sagas. His Catholicism therefore was likely genuine, regardless of what anyone else says. It’s sad that so many people wanna try and divorce the author from his faith instead of respecting the difference of opinion.
Frodo offers himself as sacrifice; Gandalf is the mover and instigator, the one who guides and empowers; in these regards, the prophet/priest motifs are strong.
hello oh geek, thank you for your always interesting and informative documentaries, it must be a lot of fun as well as work, by the way, on the subject of 'providence, i have noticed that Tom Bombadil in 'the house thereof' says 'if chance you call it' a point also made by such powers as Gandalf and Elrond, and if Galadriel does too, i wouldn't be surprised! although this fact about Tom may not have great relevance to the religion topic it likely contributes to the perennial who is Tom Bombadil question hth, i'd be interested in your learned thoughts thereon either way
Bombadil certainly knows a lot, and so I suspect he has as much (or more) reason to understand how large a role providence plays in Middle-earth as anyone else.
Tolkien's works certainly have Christian elements, certainly, although I appreciate the fact that it doesn't smother the reader with theology unlike C.S. Lewis' Narnia series where it is rather blunt about Aslan being Jesus. The benefit being there is a lot more depth to explore depending on your background and viewpoint. Surprisingly, the relationship between Illuvitar and the Valar brings to mind the Yoruban religion where the Orisas are servants of the one deity Olodumare. And of course there are Norse elements as potentially nods towards Tengriism.
I agree that there are many elements of catholic morality/theology in anything Tolkien wrote but I think some of the parallels are forced or anyway loose enough so that they could be more directly associated with other religions/mythologies
The LOTR is essentially a Traditional Catholic view of the Old Testament. Unlike C.S. Lewis it is way more subtle and there is no Jesus figure like with Aslan. Tolken wanted to make a mythology for England but weaving Catholic elements into it he wanted to make it at its base true(according to our religion). Divine Providence guides the plot and things like Bilbo's small act of mercy in not killing Golum saved the world. Speaking as a religious Catholic and Tolken fan the idea of the Wizards seems to have been borrowed from the Book of Tobit in the Catholic OT. There you have St Raphael the Archangle running around in the guise of a human being helping Tobit fight the Demon Asmodeus. Gaundalf is a sort of Angelic being doing the same thing. Don't even get me started on the connection between the Virgin Mary and Galadriel or A Elbereth Gilthoniel. Yeh it is very Catholic but ye have to know where to look. But it is also accessible to non-Catholic fans. Cheers.
The one thing that has bothered me about Tolkien's mythology after becoming a believer was the idea that Eru gave men death as a gift. And that it was Morgoth who put it in men's hearts that death was a bad thing. Christianity has it as the opposite, that death (and other things) is the enemy. It's spoken in 1 Corinthian that death itself is the last enemy to be destroyed by God/Christ. I wonder if he thought readers would understand the concept of resurrection and thus be implied with the "gift of death" in his fiction.
:) I thought it's not about free will when they are alive, but after death - dwarrows go back to Mahal, elves back to Eru, but human souls leave the world to unknown destination
The topic's been done to death but I'll add another 2c which probably won't convince anyone. I write as a born Catholic with a fair overlap to Tolkien's background. My parents met at Oxford in the 1950s, my father was briefly a British Army officer, etc. I think they lost their faith and (I confess) the Catholic teachings didn't really "take" with me. I believe one should respect Tolkien's assertion in the 1966 Foreword: "As for any inner meaning or 'message', it has in the intention of the author none." This rules out 99% of, if not all, attempts to read his work as theology or moral teaching. It departs from earlier statements, e.g. in the Letters, but it's the final word. But that is not to say there is no evangelical intent! Put simply: he wants you to see God. Essential to this is "a quality of strangeness and wonder in the Expression, derived from the Image" (On Fairy-stories para 66). The language is clearly religious. The Image is that of God. ("Expression" possibly recalls the legal maxim 'expressio unius est exclusio alterius',the expression of one thing is the exclusion of another; that is, no polytheism.) In my opinion Tolkien's genius was to embody his purpose in a fiction, a story, having (in words he borrowed from the Oxford English Dictionary) "the inner consistency of reality". The method is set out at large in the essay. I won't elaborate further, except to say that this "reality" evidently partakes of the divine: "The peculiar quality of the ”joy” in successful Fantasy can thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth." (OFS 103)
I largely agree with your principle. Nobody can write what they don't know, and given the timing of that foreword, in the midst of the Western "Cultural Revolution", it seems like a cop-out by Tolkien, aged to his 70's by that time, or those managing his estate. That said, it's a shame that your Catholic teachings didn't stick with you, or your parents, but this did. I'm a Presbyterian Protestant, so I've had my fair share of criticism for the Catholic Church. They tend to do a lot of things wrong, and one of those is certainly popular appeal. Despite that, I'm ending my reform movement and going back to Catholicism because they do so many things right. When my church was no longer compatible with my Faith because it started radically changing to meet the demands of perversity, the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church we always pledged allegiance to had parishioners that stood strong. It didn't seem to matter what the current Pope did (I feared he would lead them astray by perverting apostolic tradition), and it still doesn't. Catholics are keeping their Faith intact, as they have for millennia, in the face of all persecution. I wonder if Tolkien saw that, or if you're seeing it now through your lens. A glimpse of the truth, as you describe it.
@@arcdecibel9986 Thank you for your reply. My conscience is my own, but I will allow continued allegiance to the Catholic Church. As for Tolkien: there are film interviews from the 1960s, for example the 1968 BBC film which is on RUclips. It is touching, it is revealing, and it portrays a completely integrated and coherent personality. He had wide sympathies, he was friends with WH Auden who was gay, and Hugo Dyson who probably was, and he quotes Simone de Beauvoir. The Foreword is of a piece with the 1964 final draft of 'On Fairy-stories' and I think they stand as his testament -- unwelcome as their message might be!
🤲J.R.R Tolkien era cristiano catolico romano ademas que le gustaba el folkor europeo antiguo,asi nacieron sus obras. El es un escritor brillante y sus obras dan fe y esperanza las ultimas que se debe perder en los momemtos mas oscuros. Me di cuenta todas sus obras estan hispiradas en el cristianismo catolico romano europeo desde Galadriel hasta Gandal.
I think the Ring actually is a representation of sin. It corrupts the person who holds it and lusts after it. And when Frodo wears it, he disappears in the real world and is visible to the Enemy and the Nazgul, who also lost their physical bodies due to their corruption. The theme of resisting the temptation of possessing the Ring and doing what is right instead of following your own will is also very Christian.
I don't see Morgoth/Sauron as powerless to create but he became powerless to create good. Both Morgoth and Sauron created many (evil/perverse) things (dragons, rings, etc)
That’s not creation. The Ring is just a machine. Dragons are just shapes made out of existing stuff. True creation is bringing something out of nothing.
tolkien was an idealist, and that worldview permeates almost every aspect of tolkien's universe. Idealism is the notion that thought precedes matter, which is contrary to what we know about our world. I love Tolkien, but the idea that all evil stems from one being rejecting Ilúvatar is overly simplistic, even if it leads to a complicated world (mirroring idealist views about our real world - the world used to be simpler and only got more complicated as it advanced.) I love the world building in Tolkien's universe, but as a Marxist I often get frustrated by the logic used and I have to remind myself that this is its own world with its own rules - it just get a bit depressing when you know this is how he felt about the real world. I have no issues with the Christian undertones of this world, I have an issue with the philosophy used.
You know a lot concerning the Bible, theology, and religious philosophy. I have a question and I ask that you pardon the intrusive nature of it especially if you have addressed this previously: of which branch of Christianity do or did you belong?
I still am Christian, but don’t belong to any denomination. But I’m pretty knowledgeable about many different branches of Christianity as well, especially Catholicism
@@TolkienLorePodcast do you know more about pre or post "Vatican II" theology? Because as an ex-agnostic who has now found the Catholic faith to be true, I found a great difference between pre-VII theology, which is thoroughly Catholic and post-VII theology, which completely abandons former teachings and seeks to appease Protestants. If it is pre-1960s you have an issue with, what is it specifically? Aquinas? Augustin? Interested in your thoughts.
My understanding is that the theology didn’t change that much, mostly just the practice (eg vernacular mass), but I haven’t made a specific study of it.
We got to watch the trilogy in highschool because our Christian Studies teacher thought that it had enough themes for us to learn from, and while at the time I pushed back against what I thought was indoctrination I'm very thankful for it
It is abundantly clear that Tolkien's tale and setting are Christian in inspiration, but what makes it specifically Catholic? I'm a lifelong Protestant but pretty knowledgeable about Catholicism (I thought) and I don't see much that is "Catholic-only" about the Legandarium.
Much of the thought behind the nature of evil comes specifically out of early Catholic theologians, for one. I didn’t get into Marian theology but several people have argued that Galadriel is a very strong Mary figure from a Catholic point of view.
Gimli's veneration of Galadriel, and her intercession to get him permission to go to Valinor, are especially Catholic more than Protestant. There is also a letter (I think to a priest?) in which Tolkien argues that Galadriel did not sin, in leading the Noldor back to Middle Earth. That passage in the Silmarillion makes her seem, to my Protestant ears, more like Eve, leading her people to sin and death.
@@TolkienLorePodcast Okay, thank you. I'm not aware of much difference between Protestant and Catholic thought on the nature of evil, but maybe I'm wrong. As for Galadriel, there is a lot of intercession, of one sort or another, in the Legendarium, and I suppose that's a favorite theme of Catholics, even if it isn't a theme that Protestants really reject.
Protestants who put a lot of thought into it I think generally tend to agree with the Catholic view on evil, it’s just there isn’t as much focus on a philosophy behind it in many Protestant circles. Protestants also do believe in praying for others, but generally believe that you can’t do that if you’ve already left the mortal plane. 😂
Well said. SJW who deny this fact about Tolkien or how he was inspired by Judeo-Christian theology will never understand why true Tolkien fans would not like his mythology tampered with, like Amazon attempts to do.
I missed the bit in the Bible where Jesus came back , got down and dirty with a hot elf babe and founded a new generation. Im not at all religous, but I would never deny that western theologies went into the mix, but for me (and this is personal opinion) but trying to bring in whatever is modern theology cheapens the thing and usually entirely misses what was written. Gandalf was not a prophet with a link to the divine.. HE WAS the divine. Focussing on Frodo misses out on the true hero of the fellowship, the 10th companion...Smeagol. Frodo/Sam/Gollum are a trinity, Gollum/Frodo are the Yin/Yang. Aragorn is far more profound and special than just being a fantasy magic king. His (this is applicable whether you are religiousor secular) peaceful and gratefull acceptance of death (spoilers... he dies!). Possbly this is profound for me given that I have nearly died twice in the last 12 months due to very serious health issues. Looking at a the end of life with peace and calmly "giving it back" is a truly magical thing. But this is the magic of Tolkein and great literature in general, its there for us to take from it what we want and what we value. Even Amazon cant ruin that!
Did you miss the bit where God came back from his abandonment of the Israelites, impregnated a virgin whilst keeping her virginity intact, and then that child went on to found the most successful, widespread, prosperous religion, and arguably, contiguous society, in human history? You don't need to be religious to appreciate that. Indeed, you should probably appreciate it MORE without religion, because it means a Galilean peasant carpenter became Lord over the Empire that executed Him and became the single most influential person in human history. How did He do that? For Christians, it's an everyday miracle one should expect from an omnipotent God. The Messiah was already foretold, and he was delivered to restore God's glory that it might cover the Earth. He's Aragorn, or Arthur, the once and future kings. Frodo isn't. Frodo is the protagonist living through this crap, and the possession of power ultimately destroys him. Even Gandalf can't touch it, as a prophet, or if he was the divine as you posit. There are secular reasons for why that would be a theme, and you've missed all of them. You might want to think about those, or ask. Instead, you're trying to sandwich in a foreign religion, which I don't blame you for because all people are pretty much biologically designed to be religious, but it's also one Tolkien had no knowledge of. The author isn't dead. You can't just re-define all the characters and have any of this make sense. Frodo. Sam, and Gollum are not a trinity, much less a triune God. How would that work? Nobody ever gives them any recognition, most never even knew they existed. That was kind of their whole thing. They went beneath the gaze of power, which is pretty typical for protagonists amongst religious folks. They already know they don't have power themselves, it belongs to the Divine, but they can do their part no matter how humble they are. Can you explain how those three are the yin and yang and also a trinity beyond just saying it? Whether your intent is sarcasm or you're being serious, it seems like you're only scratching at the surface of lessons from your near-death experiences. Imagine roughly 70,000 years of human near-death experiences eventually forming lasting cultures and religions. I pray you have the time you need to learn all this before you go, because it's a MUCH wider world than your perspective indicates, and one that made me truly awe the power of God.
Who is the Idiot. The one who sees only himself and puts himself first in his life. Who is crazy. The one who lost everything and was left with only his mind. From the words of a Catholic priest.
Lord Jesus / these words have the character of a private revelation / from the work of the Italian mystic Mária Valtorta/: How much is there that is not in the Gospels or how much can be recognized from the Gospels only because they were pointed out, under the veil of thick silence, behind which the evangelists hid the episodes from my life. Because their hard Hebrew mentality prevented them from recognizing various other episodes. Do you believe you know everything I have done? Truly, I tell you, even if you read the whole work / the work of M. Valtorta / and accept this information about my earthly public life, you will still not know everything. All the days of my actions, I communicated with effort, everything that I did on individual days, to my "little Jan"/ M. Valtorta/, so that she would share this knowledge with you! John said: There are many other things that Jesus did. if someone could describe it all... Believe me, not even all the books in the world would be enough for everything that a person would have to describe. Believe me, if I were to describe all my deeds on earth, all my prayers and all my sacrifices, it would have to be a very large library on good pillars, so that all the books that would be written could be stored in it.
Let this work serve for spiritual leaders and those who care for the soul as a help for their mission, because it describes the diverse people who moved around me and the diverse means that I used to save them. Because it would be folly for all souls to use the same method. The art and method of bringing a righteous person to the perfection to which he himself wants to reach are different from those that a person uses with a religious person who is sinful or that should be used with a person who is a heathen. And you have the Gentiles in great numbers with you. .. you, as your Teacher, look at these pagans, poor people, who have replaced the true God with gods of POWER and COURAGE; GOLD, IMPURITIES and PRIDE for your knowledge..... And again, some modern proselyte who has adopted Christian ideas, but does not belong to the church, will be saved otherwise.
Do not despise any sheep, least of all misguided sheep. Love them and try to bring them back to the fold so that the Shepherd's wish will be fulfilled.
It's still quite the leap, and I believe it marginalizes many of the other deep themes which comprise the work. Also, both Tolkien senior and his wonderful son had plenty of time to make further statements as to the religious nature of the work, but chose to abstain. It's well known he distilled many of his favourite mythic and historical sagas, work, and philosophies, and the work is replete with these themes. Acknowledging the work is by a deeply spiritual Catholic, and contains many Catholic themes, it is still only one of the flavours in the pot, even if the boldest. If you are to make claims and dismiss others so boldly and offhandedly, should you not have to answer to all the aspects of Middle Earth which directly contradict Catholic spirit? Because the work is splendidly full of this, too.
@@TolkienLorePodcast Sorry, away for a few days. I mean, honestly the work contradicts Catholic thought in all but a few ways, and happy to further discuss that as I am, I might as well just cite Tolkein himself: letter 131 To Milton Waldman directly addresses the idea of Christian thought in his work several times, Ill quote a few passages here and leave a link
Your claim was that his story was full of things that *contradict* Catholicism. These quotes only prove that it lacks explicit reference to Catholicism. To take perhaps the worst example you give, the lack of anything about “controlling the reproductive rights of women,” the fact that nothing specifically calls out abortion as immoral is not proof that it is considered permissible in his stories. You’re just committing a long series of fallacies along the lines of “absence of evidence is the evidence of absence.” Indeed, his remark about the Valar specifically shows that he *was* making his story compatible with Christian thought, by pointing out that in the form they have in his story they are acceptable to a mind that believes in the trinity. Nor should we expect explicit Catholic worship since the events are pre-Old Testament fictional history, but there *is* worship (in Numenor particularly on the Meneltarma we get explicit references to worship of Eru). You’ll have to do better.
@@TolkienLorePodcast Sorry, did you not take the time to read the letter? And the quotes contain much more than that, if you were to give them any sort of fair reading. He directly says that Christian thought having entering Aurthurian legend was fatal, in the context of explaining how his work would do otherwise. He was quite clear that he was a profound catholic, he was also clear his work was not fundamentally catholic. It's typically in poor form to attack the weakest point rather than the strongest, it's also a pretty dishonest fallacy to act as if the burden of proof would be to prove Catholicism is not present, rather than the burden of someone who supported that supposition to prove it. Somehow I'm not surprised. Also, even if there are many and obvious ways in which the writing contradicts Catholic thought, that does not mean there is no Catholic symbolism, or that the work is meant to be unintelligible to the catholic mind. You can be as aggressively pseudo analytic as you like, but rendering Valar to be 'baldly understandable' to the Catholic mind =/= does not make them Catholic, they are baldly and deeply understood by pretty much anyone who has studies mythology, as Tolkien first acknowledges further up in the same paragraph with the quote about Valar, if you had read the source, that is, Tolkien's own words. Further, the Valar are introduced and named in a Homeric fashion in the Silmarillion, and given particular powers and dominions, echoing many older mythologies more specifically than Catholicism. Hindu, Norse, Greek and so on. Numenor is quite clearly related to the Atlantis myth, for a stark example, just as the fellowships has echoes of Homeric odyssey, and the Argonauts on their divine voyages, and on. There are wild elements of naturalism and paganism abound. In response to the abortion idea, its equally true that the absence of that information should not leave us empowered to state the opposite. But Primarily, Eru is so vastly differed from the Catholic God, it's silly. Eru is not shown spiteful or hateful in any way, he demanded no worship. The Eru creation mythology presented no hell, or idea of retribution, no divine punishment. He did not appear to his children in disguise to test them, harshly or not. Pretty much all Evil can be traced back to Morgoth or Shelob, with Sauron of course doing his part later on, and as the quotes show, the story of the Fall, the men the elves and all, is explicitly different than the Catholic fall. The fall often being presented as one of the stronger Catholic echoes, Tolkien clearly says that it's only similar in the shallowest sense. Eru also seem to make sex and all it's ramifications less of their concern, I believe Eru and Tolkien say little on it. But all this aside, Tolkien clearly communicated that he did not want his work to be understood as a trojan horse for Christianity. Yes, he was a devout Catholic, and so his work is suffused with some symbolic elements of Catholicism, but he was also a devout historian and student of the ancient poets, a professional philologist, a philosopher, and an artist. He made a brilliant work blending most of his passions and loves, but he distinctly wrote that it to the extent his work would carry Christian ideology is also the extent his work would fail, or die. Misunderstandings happen, but does it not seem too much to speak against the authors own written wishes? Do you really believe it to be Catholic soup, not the rich multifaceted Mytho-Poetic stew, with some Catholic spirit and spice, as he intended?
I don’t think we’re arguing the same thing here. I’m not arguing the work is a “Trojan horse” for Catholicism, which should have been clear if you watched my video. Did you? Or are you just reacting to a thumbnail? You also act like I’m shifting the burden of proof. I already put forth my evidence in my video. Then you come along and make a new claim that multiple elements of the story *contradict* Catholicism. It’s that statement for which you have the burden of proof, and your latest response doesn’t solve the issue, but rather repeats the same fallacies as the previous one, relying on the *absence of explicit reference* as proof of *contradiction.* You also imply I’m going against the author’s stated intentions, but I’m the one with a statement from the author himself literally confirming my thesis, not you. Tolkien quite literally told someone in a letter that his work was fundamentally religious and Catholic. So I have all the arguments I made in the video plus what Tolkien explicitly said. You have a string of fallacious arguments based on the absence of explicit religious references. If you’re sticking to your guns I don’t see any point in arguing. I can’t talk you out of a fallacy you can’t see when Tolkien’s own words contradict you. But if you’re arguing something different then clarify and maybe we can make progress.
Private message /Slovakia/: source confidential: 30/10/2021 TOLKIEN is a work for heathens, a good Christian has other sources of knowledge, my daughter. I am the INCARNATE Word of God, I am Your Jesus, daughter..
If your friend, a priest asks you whether your book is fundamentally catholic, you gonna tell him "Yeah, suuure. Of course!". That is a polite thing to do with consideration to his feelings and your friendship. When you are writing fiction, you gonna reflect the real world into it. There is so much content in Bible, that if you want, you can always find some similarity there to almost everything.
Honestly, it was the built-in racism that bothered me even as a child -- all the "slant-eyed" slurs, all the blood line stuff. The main thing I respected about JK Rowling was her determined dismantling of that "pure blood" crap. It's not essentially Catholic, but it does go along with how socially regressive Tolkien was, which of course was not unrelated to his Catholicism. (Don't get me wrong. There's plenty I appreciate in Tolkien, but I find that that regressiveness is present in enough places to limit how "applicable" -- as he would put it -- his story is.)
@@TolkienLorePodcast Not true. The whole blood line thing is the essence of racism, and it bothered me long before I had words or analysis for it. The "slant-eye" orc-people was pretty blatant. But thanks for telling me where you stand.
When I first read The Hobbit and LOTR I didn't notice anything but the parallels were quite clear when I read the Silmarillion. As I have learned over the years about the various sources of inspiration Tolkien had for The Legendarium, I've become increasingly impressed at how he wove everything together.
Tolkien Geek: You are correct. Tolkien was profoundly Catholic, i.e., what is now called "traditionalist." He held all the doctrines of the Catholic Church, even going so far as to adhere to the old liturgical form (the Latin Mass) when Rome and the local parish had abandoned their legacy. The Professor's adherence to Catholic theology is most often shown by the symbolic "types" he uses, i.e., the people or items in the plot that have a theological dimension. Here are just a few:
*Gandalf - Tolkien admitted in his letters that Gandalf was an angel. If we look at Gandalf's method of dealing with the people's of ME, he guides, he encourages, he enlightens, he even, to some extent, pushes. But he never forces the will, nor does he use his "angelic" power unless absolutely necessary.
*Galadriel - Tolkien as much as admitted that Galadriel was an image of the Blessed Virgin in her intervention to assist the Fellowship and her immaculate appearance and bearing. Particularly, she gives gifts, as the Blessed Virgin dispenses the graces of God.
*Lembas - The elven waybread, which would sustain one for many days, was a symbol of the Eucharist/holy communion. The more one depended on it and no other food, the more it would sustain life. This is the what the Eucharist does spiritually. Tolkien admitted this in an interview, coyly acknowledging that the Lady who gave lembas to the Fellowship must be the Blessed Virgin.
*Varda/Elbereth - This is Tolkien's image of the Blessed Virgin as the one who answers prayers from the wayfarers still on their journey.
A Elbereth Gilthoniel O Elbereth Starkindler,
o menel palan-díriel, from heaven gazing afar,
le nallon sí di'nguruthos! to thee I cry now beneath the shadow of death!
A tiro nin, Fanuilos! O look towards me, Everwhite!
We still remember, we who dwell
In this far land beneath the trees
The starlight on the Western Seas.
The reference here to "starkindler" is reminiscent of the Virgin being called "Star of the Sea." "Everwhite" (or in the books, "Snow White") is an obvious reference to the Virgin's immaculate purity.
Keep up the good work, Geek! Namarie.
The First Connection i Made with lembas was Mana(as from the old Testament.) But i was Surprise to hear about his Faith, but i'm Catholic sooo😅
18:14 Evil being boring is actually in Chesterton too.
When he explains why Molochism occurred (Everlasting Man), he speaks of men who are so bored they need a touch of evil to stab themselves into sensation, and when he has Fr Brown convert Flambeau (first series of short stories) it's with the perspective that evil gets narrower and narrower, more and more shut in - even without taking prison into account. The idea of needing higher and higher doses to get an effect.
Good stuff as ever. I think that Frodo being unable to destroy the ring , but being saved by providence is an overtly Christian view, that redemption is found only through gods no man can achieve it. I think this is mentioned in one of his letters. Thanks and keep up the good work.
Really appreciated how you approached this huge topic looking at the ways Middle-earth could be said to be a religious or Catholic work. There's the actual role of divinity within the story, the characters, roles and images that seem to have been inspired by religious sources, and then the final idea that the philosophy Tolkien applied to Middle-earth rested on the same assumptions as his theology. ...it would be interesting, in light of that, to examine some of the places where he included ideas that aren't really associated with Christian theology, such as the reincarnation of Elves and Dwarves.
as an atheist. i appreciate tolkien using many religions and cultures and tried to create a mythology for UK
I went to an Opus Dei school and can say that Tolkien books were highly popular among professors and students. There was a clear sync / vibe between Tolkien's writings and their general view of the world. Don't know if it was that school in particular, or something popular among Catholics of that org (I'm not of any religion). But I'm grateful that they introduced me to Tolkien's universe.
JBP talks about how we admire heroes and strive to be like them, and that Christ is the ultimate hero. The tie-in to LOTR is that soooo many characters in LOTR are heroes in their own lane. It’s quite obvious with Frodo and Aragorn, and also of course with Faramir, Boromir, Gandalf, Eomir, Eowyn, Sam, Merry, Pippin, Treebeard, and many others. I love that each character can be a hero depending on if they choose goodness, honor, love, and bravery.
Side note: Men of the West did a video on Bill the Pony and how he is a hero. He laughed through the whole thing, because it’s such a silly idea to think of Bill as a hero, and yet, he WAS! How sweet that Tolkien created a world in which even a pony can brave and loyal and tough and contribute to a righteous cause, saving the world, in a powerful way.
17:53 In Aquinas, badness or evil is the negation of a _due_ good.
A stone not seeing involves no badness or evil, since sight is not due to a stone.
A man not seeing involves him suffering the evil of blindness. Since normally, in a man eyesight _is_ due.
The guy who wrote that article is a Euphoric Atheist type, his entire list of articles are him yelling into the void in various forms of "Checkmate, X-ians!" Great video by the by.
Lucifer, (Latin: Lightbearer) Greek Phosphorus, or Eosphoros, in classical mythology, the morning star (i.e., the planet Venus at dawn); personified as a male figure bearing a torch, Lucifer had almost no legend, but in poetry he was often herald of the dawn.
Earendil also appears as the evening star, in 'The Mirror of Galadriel'. Of course the planet Venus has a completely opposite significance as Queen of Heaven, e.g. the Babylonian Ishtar or the virgin Mary. Tolkien definitely tried to write out pagan survivals, in Appendix D going so far as to re-name the days of the week.
He is also very down on astrology. I have got a theory that, regardless of the received etymology (far see-er), the Palantiri actually stem from the word "planetary", which was a common term for things astrological. There was a particular fancy that the planets could actually see things on Earth e.g. Hudibras 2,3,715ff.
Already this video was great, and then you bring in Megamind. You are a genius.
The idea of Frodo, Gandalf, and Aragorn as three kinds of Christ-figures goes back (at least) to an essay I read in the late 1960s. I can't now remember either the title or the author, but I suspect it was contained in _Tolkien and the Critics_ (ed. Neil Isaacs and Rose Zimbardo, 1968). (If I still have a copy of that, it's mislaid somewhere.) In the 1968 form, Frodo was explained not as "priest" but as "suffering servant" (from Isaiah 53 and the other "servant songs" in the latter part of that book). Many people do explain the Isaianic servant as a priestly figure, but if you focus solely on what is in Isaiah's poems and not on all the aspects of priesthood you can think of, it seems to me the idea makes a lot of sense. You said that Frodo doesn't bear "sin," but he does bear a thing that greatly promotes evil, so I think the parallel is still good. Even though Frodo succumbs to temptation at the last minute and is not actually killed by his burden, I think this only means he is not actually Christ himself; his mission succeeds anyway because his mercy and forgiveness for Gollum give providence material to work with, and these traits are of course key to Christ's role as the Servant.
The Tolkien "Scholars" who worked on the Amazon abomination will not be pleased with this video. 😄👍
🤲J.R.R Tolkien era cristiano catolico romano ademas que le gustaba el folkor europeo antiguo,asi nacieron sus obras.
El es un escritor brillante y sus obras dan fe y esperanza las ultimas que se debe perder en los momemtos mas oscuros.
Pues que los de Amazon se atwngan a las consecuencias si no respetaron nada de su obra y la religión que practicaba Tolkien.
Ya know I've watched several of your videos lately based on the way you talk, especially with your hands, but this video is what got me to subscribe.
I thoroughly enjoyed your comments. I've heard friends also comment on the Mariology throughout his writings from almost all of the Valier to Galadriel and Eowyn.
This is an excellent summary - clear, very little editorializing - just focused on the topic. Great video! I can't remember where I heard the prophet/priest/king before - but this is an excellent point to raise.
Although I agree with you, Tolkien did parallel a lot of his stuff with Catholicism but you could also make a lengthy video on the parallels with Pagan Legends and characters.. There are a lot of mirror similarities between Norse Mythology and Tolkien's Middle Earth and the characters and tales within
There are a lot of books about the subject, but Tolkien 'sanctified' myth. He took noble pagan virtues such as raw will & courage and recontextualised them into a Catholic meaning
@@crimsonthumos3905 right, I just picked up the Canterbury Leather Bound Classic edition of David Days 'An Encyclopedia of Tolkien' and he shows the parallels to a T.. I read The Hobbit and LoTR in grade school and I'm 31 now just getting really into Tolkien and the whole Middle Earth saga.. I'm hooked lol
Critics of LOTR often explicitly cite its overtly Christian elements as their reason for not liking it or Tolkien's legendarium more broadly. I think the only people who really dispute that it's a work of Christian and Catholic inspiration are neo-Pagans who want to claim that its some kind of work of Germanic/ Norse mythology, which isn't untrue, but also ignores the metaphysics and moral grounding of Tolkien's universe for dubious reasons.
I think it is mainly the creation of the world, which is similiar to christian mythology: Eru/Illuvatar as god, the ainur/valar/maiar as angels, and Melkor/Morgoth as the most powerfull angel which falls and gets satan/the devil. But Tolkien manages to fit northern/greek/roman mythology into this monotheistic creation, too, by putting a 14 valar pantheon to valinor, which reminds of the olymp/asgard.
Other parts of the legendarium you could discover christian/catholic motives ... well, yes, you could ... and you could read something else in them, too ... But thats just IMHO. :)
Always enjoy your videos and I think for any author or creator in any medium it would be challenging to not let your beliefs influence your creation. CS Lewis wrote Narnia as a way for children of all ages to understand Biblical concepts, Tolkien just wanted to create a world for his Elvish language that as a byproduct of his beliefs has Christian undertones.
Gandalf always seems to know what's up. He has doubts occasionally, but has confidence that things will work out to the good of the Free Peoples in the end. Whenever Providence presents an opportunity, Gandalf is always willing to act on faith and prompt others to action and faithfulness as well. He may not have a direct line to Eru, but Eru has a direct line to him, if only through intuition.
Other prominent Christian Themes:
1. Even the most gifted and Faithful of men can turn demonic in worship and behavior though pride, envy, and greed. None of us are perfect. No one is immune. We all stumble and fall even in paradise.
2. Bearing one another's burdens. Whether its Aragorn and Boromir on his deathbed or a piggyback ride up Mount Doom Tolkien's heroes take up one another's burdens of duty and grief.
3. The Supremacy of Mercy. Grace, Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Renewal are the heart of the Christian faith. They also underlie the whole Legendarium: the rescue of Maedhros, the pleas of Earendil, and of cours, Frodo sparing Gollum.
And Bilbo sparing Gollum; and Aragorn sparing Gollum and Sam sparing Gollum; and Frodo sparing Saruman.
I see Frodo as the greatest hero of LoFTR.
He willingly takes up the burden and no one else suffers as he does.
“By his wounds we are healed”.
12:55 Mostly Catholics believe that Christ's millennium is now ongoing since 33 (or whenever it was, Belloc says 29). And that Christ is ruling politically through His Church over Catholic societies.
There seems however not to be a direct ban on part of the Church universal against taking the millennium as upcoming, and Tolkien held that view.
11:46 _"the ring doesn't represent sin"_
In a way yes, insofar as the temptation to use the ring is somewhat parallel to temptation in general.
Obviously, in that respect Frodo would still be a weak symbol, since he sometimes _did_ use the ring.
In their edition of On Fairy-stories, Verlyn Flieger and Douglas Anderson point to the influence of Andrew Lang's "higher mythology". (OFS was originally the Andrew Lang Lecture; Lang is best known for the Blue and other Fairy Books, which Tolkien knew from a child). Tolkien comments:
"Something really “higher” is occasionally glimpsed in mythology: Divinity, the right to power (as distinct from its possession), the due worship; in fact “religion.” Andrew Lang said, and is by some still commended for saying, that mythology and religion (in the strict sense of that word) are two distinct things that have become inextricably entangled, though mythology is in itself almost devoid of religious significance." -- OFS 33
This might seem puzzling. Isn't mythology, e.g. Greek or Norse, almost entirely about religion? To put it delicately, yes, but not Lang and Tolkien's kind of religion. The "higher mythology" was an explanation of folk-tale i.e. fairy-story. It was a form of natural theology, defined as "religion ... without revelation" (Chambers). But as Lang might be conceding, the evidence is unsatisfactory.
On the other hand Tolkien's words recall another of his preoccupations: Power. Did his early life, especially the suffering of his mother, offend the child's sense of justice; sparking his insistence that power must be divinely sanctioned?
Good video!
A very interesting and lucid commentary of Tolkien's stances! Tolkien in many ways was a Catholic, but unlike CS Lewis, he was in no sense a proselytizing Christian author. But nonetheless he was a Christian one, something that can be seen throughout his work.
As you point out, both in the Silmarillion and the Athrabeth, you will encounter clear cut theological claims in Tolkien's work. But likewise in less obvious places, already taken up in this comment section: topics such as Elven reincarnation and the Creation of the Dwarves are also mainly influenced by Thomist and Augustinian theology, focusing on the immortality of the soul and the body and how, for elves, the body is linked to the soul and vice versa. In the Ainulindale, in his metaphysics he clearly is inspired by Thomist theology.
In The Nature of Middle-Earth, a lot of Tolkien's more theological musings are present - but in a sense he was a lay-person and it seems like he felt a bit uneasy to fully incorporate Christian theology into his work - here he differs a lot from CS Lewis. Even when Tolkien is seemingly a Platonist (e.g., the Athrabeth) he often is one from a Catholic (may it be Augustinian and Thomist) standpoint. He might be fundamentally Catholic, but I think often, only readers who know some Chirstian theology might pick up on these themes.
Thank you for a great video on the topic!
I confess, I don't know much of Thomas Aquinas. However I agree there are traces of St Augustine, particularly 'Of Christian Doctrine' (De Doctrina Christiana, hereafter DDC).
For example, Augustine's matter-of-fact acceptance of angels:
"For if we find our happiness complete in one another, we stop short upon the road, and place our hope of happiness in man or angel. Now the proud man and the proud angel arrogate this to themselves, and are glad to have the hope of others fixed upon them. But, on the contrary, the holy man and the holy angel, even when we are weary and anxious to stay with them and rest in them, set themselves to recruit our energies with the provision which they have received of God for us or for themselves; and then urge us thus refreshed to go on our way towards Him" -- DDC 1, 33
Gandalf is plainly a holy angel. Saruman is a proud angel who like Sauron before him becomes a false one (an outright instrument of the Devil, cf DDC 2,23). What is worse Saruman is a "neighbour" (to Treebeard). Curiously St Augustine specifies that angels are indeed neighbours whom we should love (DDC 1,30).
All with the caveat, these are story-themes - NOT to be taken literally.
I agree, Tolkien kept Platonism at a distance though it does creep in. Augustine is pretty definite in rejecting the Platonist claims on Christianity: The saint calls in evidence St Ambrose's "discovery" that Plato had visited Egypt at the very time the prophet Jeremiah was there. Similar considerations apply to Pythagoras:
"And thus, when we reflect upon the dates, it becomes much more probable that those philosophers learnt whatever they said that was good and true from our literature, than that the Lord Jesus Christ learnt from the writings of Plato - a thing which it is the height of folly to believe." (DDC 2,28)
the poem "All that is gold does not glitter" about Aragorn, I see a lot of parallels in that to Christ as well specifically.
I was brought up Catholic and one of the main massages I got from it is that we (Catholics) are only happy when we're suffering. I read the almost constant grief in The Silmarillion and it reeks of that sentiment.
messages not massages. Fruedian slip, there.
Very interesting and thought provoking overview, thank you. Your explanation of why the works are 'fundamentally' Christian and Catholic was really well expressed ie that the foundations of Tolkien's world are fundamentally the same as in the Catholic world view. One aspect I have wondered about a lot in terms of good and evil in Middle Earth is how animals and the land itself take on those aspects, or at least Morgoth and Sauron are able to corrupt them in some way to make them evil. Sauron tortures the earth itself we are told at the Council of Elrond. Conversely, when Frodo wades across the Nimrodel, it seems to have a spiritually restorative effect on him. I am not sure whether this idea of good and evil embedded in the physical places themselves in found in Christian theology or is an instinct particular to Tolkien.
There are some Christian groups who believe in things like relics that are holy and such, and of course many Christians go on pilgrimages to holy sites, but I think Tolkien adds a unique flavor to the idea by making it Elvish or corrupted by a Dark Lord.
Yes, the idea that things can sort of carry a good or bad sort of vibration is there in the idea of relics, that's true, or maybe that some sites are sacred.... interesting 🙂
Another top-notch video to be honest I prefer to just look at the Legendarium as mythology/fantasy and not too Christian, though some of the references can be interesting or are undeniable. There is also the healing touch of Aragorn that though a nod to medieval kings' healing touch myths and stories, could also be a nod to the Christian tales of Jesus and his disciples healing.
In his works, I think it is extremely difficult to separate Tolkien's Catholicism from his paganism or more precisely his love of Old English, Norse and Germanic mythology. It doesn't help that much of the source material for these mythologies that Tolkien knew were actually written by Catholics like Snorri Sturluson. Of course, all the commentary that Tolkien gives outside the stories themselves is pegged to official Catholic doctrine. Even so, Tolkien splits hairs to keep both elements like the fine line between Valar as angels and Valar as gods (little 'g'). He wants to tell a pagan story of gods, heroes and common men in the mode of Beowulf or the Odyssey, but still keep it in the circle of accepted doctrine. This is the real tension in his work between his boyhood dreams of pagan heroes and his deeply held adult belief in Catholicism.
I think the point is you can still draw influence and admire pre-Christian culture as a Christian. After all Christians perserved many literary works from that time, the problem is the practices that are opposed to it, like idol worship, human sacrifice etc. Tolkien sort of "baptizes" the pre Christian European mythologies in his work. His creation myth for example is completely different than the pagan ones, where the gods are created being who establish the world after usurping a more ancient creature than them.
@@aurochs1 The point is that this "baptizing" creates a tension between the work and the interpretation of the work both by the reader and by Tolkien himself. Like a lot of modern authors, Tolkien retcons his work in later commentaries which sometimes contradicts how a naïve reader would read the work. Perhaps even a bit like how later commentaries can occasionally retcon scripture.
Quite interesting. Thanks. Have you thought about hope? TLoR to me is so much about hope, and the sins about hope ( despair and pride). Do a video about this.
As a matter of fact: Amdir & Estel: The Theme of Hope in LOTR
ruclips.net/video/v_Kye-0DOac/видео.html
Tolkien's work is based in part on his Catholic beliefs, which are evident in the fundamentally Catholic mythology of Middle-Earth. In Tolkien's worldview, the material world is secondary to the spiritual world, and the battle between good and evil is a spiritual battle. This theme is most clearly expressed in The Lord of the Rings, where Sauron represents evil while Frodo and the other characters represent good.
Ignoring the fact that the guy who wrote the article is a total clown, the stories told by Tolkien are clearly inspired by his religion. You already mention fate and free will in this video. The tales definitely read like Norse or Old Irish Pagan myths more than they read like a Christian story from the Bible. But that’s mostly because Tolkien was vaguely interested in making a mythology for England, not because he was some secret phony Christian. Anyone aiming to make a mythological pre-Christian secondary world (that exists long before the world we know) is probably gonna create something that bears a passing similarity to the Táin Bó Cuailnge or one of the Norse Sagas. His Catholicism therefore was likely genuine, regardless of what anyone else says. It’s sad that so many people wanna try and divorce the author from his faith instead of respecting the difference of opinion.
Frodo offers himself as sacrifice; Gandalf is the mover and instigator, the one who guides and empowers; in these regards, the prophet/priest motifs are strong.
hello oh geek, thank you for your always interesting and informative documentaries, it must be a lot of fun as well as work, by the way, on the subject of 'providence, i have noticed that Tom Bombadil in 'the house thereof' says 'if chance you call it' a point also made by such powers as Gandalf and Elrond, and if Galadriel does too, i wouldn't be surprised! although this fact about Tom may not have great relevance to the religion topic it likely contributes to the perennial who is Tom Bombadil question hth, i'd be interested in your learned thoughts thereon either way
Bombadil certainly knows a lot, and so I suspect he has as much (or more) reason to understand how large a role providence plays in Middle-earth as anyone else.
Tolkien's works certainly have Christian elements, certainly, although I appreciate the fact that it doesn't smother the reader with theology unlike C.S. Lewis' Narnia series where it is rather blunt about Aslan being Jesus. The benefit being there is a lot more depth to explore depending on your background and viewpoint.
Surprisingly, the relationship between Illuvitar and the Valar brings to mind the Yoruban religion where the Orisas are servants of the one deity Olodumare. And of course there are Norse elements as potentially nods towards Tengriism.
I agree that there are many elements of catholic morality/theology in anything Tolkien wrote but I think some of the parallels are forced or anyway loose enough so that they could be more directly associated with other religions/mythologies
The LOTR is essentially a Traditional Catholic view of the Old Testament. Unlike C.S. Lewis it is way more subtle and there is no Jesus figure like with Aslan. Tolken wanted to make a mythology for England but weaving Catholic elements into it he wanted to make it at its base true(according to our religion). Divine Providence guides the plot and things like Bilbo's small act of mercy in not killing Golum saved the world. Speaking as a religious Catholic and Tolken fan the idea of the Wizards seems to have been borrowed from the Book of Tobit in the Catholic OT. There you have St Raphael the Archangle running around in the guise of a human being helping Tobit fight the Demon Asmodeus. Gaundalf is a sort of Angelic being doing the same thing. Don't even get me started on the connection between the Virgin Mary and Galadriel or A Elbereth Gilthoniel. Yeh it is very Catholic but ye have to know where to look. But it is also accessible to non-Catholic fans. Cheers.
The one thing that has bothered me about Tolkien's mythology after becoming a believer was the idea that Eru gave men death as a gift. And that it was Morgoth who put it in men's hearts that death was a bad thing. Christianity has it as the opposite, that death (and other things) is the enemy. It's spoken in 1 Corinthian that death itself is the last enemy to be destroyed by God/Christ. I wonder if he thought readers would understand the concept of resurrection and thus be implied with the "gift of death" in his fiction.
:) I thought it's not about free will when they are alive, but after death - dwarrows go back to Mahal, elves back to Eru, but human souls leave the world to unknown destination
This is why LOTR is so good. Everyhing is so archetypical and easy to understand by us all. Especially in the West.
The topic's been done to death but I'll add another 2c which probably won't convince anyone. I write as a born Catholic with a fair overlap to Tolkien's background. My parents met at Oxford in the 1950s, my father was briefly a British Army officer, etc. I think they lost their faith and (I confess) the Catholic teachings didn't really "take" with me.
I believe one should respect Tolkien's assertion in the 1966 Foreword: "As for any inner meaning or 'message', it has in the intention of the author none." This rules out 99% of, if not all, attempts to read his work as theology or moral teaching. It departs from earlier statements, e.g. in the Letters, but it's the final word.
But that is not to say there is no evangelical intent! Put simply: he wants you to see God. Essential to this is "a quality of strangeness and wonder in the Expression, derived from the Image" (On Fairy-stories para 66). The language is clearly religious. The Image is that of God. ("Expression" possibly recalls the legal maxim 'expressio unius est exclusio alterius',the expression of one thing is the exclusion of another; that is, no polytheism.)
In my opinion Tolkien's genius was to embody his purpose in a fiction, a story, having (in words he borrowed from the Oxford English Dictionary) "the inner consistency of reality". The method is set out at large in the essay. I won't elaborate further, except to say that this "reality" evidently partakes of the divine: "The peculiar quality of the ”joy” in successful Fantasy can thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth." (OFS 103)
I largely agree with your principle. Nobody can write what they don't know, and given the timing of that foreword, in the midst of the Western "Cultural Revolution", it seems like a cop-out by Tolkien, aged to his 70's by that time, or those managing his estate.
That said, it's a shame that your Catholic teachings didn't stick with you, or your parents, but this did. I'm a Presbyterian Protestant, so I've had my fair share of criticism for the Catholic Church. They tend to do a lot of things wrong, and one of those is certainly popular appeal. Despite that, I'm ending my reform movement and going back to Catholicism because they do so many things right. When my church was no longer compatible with my Faith because it started radically changing to meet the demands of perversity, the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church we always pledged allegiance to had parishioners that stood strong. It didn't seem to matter what the current Pope did (I feared he would lead them astray by perverting apostolic tradition), and it still doesn't. Catholics are keeping their Faith intact, as they have for millennia, in the face of all persecution.
I wonder if Tolkien saw that, or if you're seeing it now through your lens. A glimpse of the truth, as you describe it.
@@arcdecibel9986 Thank you for your reply. My conscience is my own, but I will allow continued allegiance to the Catholic Church.
As for Tolkien: there are film interviews from the 1960s, for example the 1968 BBC film which is on RUclips. It is touching, it is revealing, and it portrays a completely integrated and coherent personality. He had wide sympathies, he was friends with WH Auden who was gay, and Hugo Dyson who probably was, and he quotes Simone de Beauvoir. The Foreword is of a piece with the 1964 final draft of 'On Fairy-stories' and I think they stand as his testament -- unwelcome as their message might be!
🤲J.R.R Tolkien era cristiano catolico romano ademas que le gustaba el folkor europeo antiguo,asi nacieron sus obras.
El es un escritor brillante y sus obras dan fe y esperanza las ultimas que se debe perder en los momemtos mas oscuros.
Me di cuenta todas sus obras estan hispiradas en el cristianismo catolico romano europeo desde Galadriel hasta Gandal.
Well done. 👍
I think the Ring actually is a representation of sin. It corrupts the person who holds it and lusts after it. And when Frodo wears it, he disappears in the real world and is visible to the Enemy and the Nazgul, who also lost their physical bodies due to their corruption. The theme of resisting the temptation of possessing the Ring and doing what is right instead of following your own will is also very Christian.
I don't see Morgoth/Sauron as powerless to create but he became powerless to create good. Both Morgoth and Sauron created many (evil/perverse) things (dragons, rings, etc)
That’s not creation. The Ring is just a machine. Dragons are just shapes made out of existing stuff. True creation is bringing something out of nothing.
tolkien was an idealist, and that worldview permeates almost every aspect of tolkien's universe. Idealism is the notion that thought precedes matter, which is contrary to what we know about our world. I love Tolkien, but the idea that all evil stems from one being rejecting Ilúvatar is overly simplistic, even if it leads to a complicated world (mirroring idealist views about our real world - the world used to be simpler and only got more complicated as it advanced.) I love the world building in Tolkien's universe, but as a Marxist I often get frustrated by the logic used and I have to remind myself that this is its own world with its own rules - it just get a bit depressing when you know this is how he felt about the real world. I have no issues with the Christian undertones of this world, I have an issue with the philosophy used.
You know a lot concerning the Bible, theology, and religious philosophy. I have a question and I ask that you pardon the intrusive nature of it especially if you have addressed this previously: of which branch of Christianity do or did you belong?
I still am Christian, but don’t belong to any denomination. But I’m pretty knowledgeable about many different branches of Christianity as well, especially Catholicism
@@TolkienLorePodcast The Catholic church will welcome you home anytime.
I have too many profound disagreements with Catholic theology for that to be likely 😂
@@TolkienLorePodcast do you know more about pre or post "Vatican II" theology? Because as an ex-agnostic who has now found the Catholic faith to be true, I found a great difference between pre-VII theology, which is thoroughly Catholic and post-VII theology, which completely abandons former teachings and seeks to appease Protestants. If it is pre-1960s you have an issue with, what is it specifically? Aquinas? Augustin? Interested in your thoughts.
My understanding is that the theology didn’t change that much, mostly just the practice (eg vernacular mass), but I haven’t made a specific study of it.
We got to watch the trilogy in highschool because our Christian Studies teacher thought that it had enough themes for us to learn from, and while at the time I pushed back against what I thought was indoctrination I'm very thankful for it
It is abundantly clear that Tolkien's tale and setting are Christian in inspiration, but what makes it specifically Catholic? I'm a lifelong Protestant but pretty knowledgeable about Catholicism (I thought) and I don't see much that is "Catholic-only" about the Legandarium.
Much of the thought behind the nature of evil comes specifically out of early Catholic theologians, for one. I didn’t get into Marian theology but several people have argued that Galadriel is a very strong Mary figure from a Catholic point of view.
Gimli's veneration of Galadriel, and her intercession to get him permission to go to Valinor, are especially Catholic more than Protestant.
There is also a letter (I think to a priest?) in which Tolkien argues that Galadriel did not sin, in leading the Noldor back to Middle Earth. That passage in the Silmarillion makes her seem, to my Protestant ears, more like Eve, leading her people to sin and death.
@@TolkienLorePodcast Okay, thank you. I'm not aware of much difference between Protestant and Catholic thought on the nature of evil, but maybe I'm wrong. As for Galadriel, there is a lot of intercession, of one sort or another, in the Legendarium, and I suppose that's a favorite theme of Catholics, even if it isn't a theme that Protestants really reject.
Protestants who put a lot of thought into it I think generally tend to agree with the Catholic view on evil, it’s just there isn’t as much focus on a philosophy behind it in many Protestant circles. Protestants also do believe in praying for others, but generally believe that you can’t do that if you’ve already left the mortal plane. 😂
Weird cause didn't Tolkien dislike Dune because of the allagory?
I think he did dislike Dune but not sure why. Not sure why that’s weird though.
Actually it’s Elwing who is Maiar blood. Just saying
Oops, you’re right, I messed up my generational calculations there 😂
lol all good. Great video
Well said. SJW who deny this fact about Tolkien or how he was inspired by Judeo-Christian theology will never understand why true Tolkien fans would not like his mythology tampered with, like Amazon attempts to do.
There’s no Judeo in his inspiration, just Christian
I’d disagree with that.
I missed the bit in the Bible where Jesus came back , got down and dirty with a hot elf babe and founded a new generation.
Im not at all religous, but I would never deny that western theologies went into the mix, but for me (and this is personal opinion) but trying to bring in whatever is modern theology cheapens the thing and usually entirely misses what was written.
Gandalf was not a prophet with a link to the divine.. HE WAS the divine. Focussing on Frodo misses out on the true hero of the fellowship, the 10th companion...Smeagol. Frodo/Sam/Gollum are a trinity, Gollum/Frodo are the Yin/Yang.
Aragorn is far more profound and special than just being a fantasy magic king. His (this is applicable whether you are religiousor secular) peaceful and gratefull acceptance of death (spoilers... he dies!). Possbly this is profound for me given that I have nearly died twice in the last 12 months due to very serious health issues. Looking at a the end of life with peace and calmly "giving it back" is a truly magical thing. But this is the magic of Tolkein and great literature in general, its there for us to take from it what we want and what we value. Even Amazon cant ruin that!
Did you miss the bit where God came back from his abandonment of the Israelites, impregnated a virgin whilst keeping her virginity intact, and then that child went on to found the most successful, widespread, prosperous religion, and arguably, contiguous society, in human history? You don't need to be religious to appreciate that. Indeed, you should probably appreciate it MORE without religion, because it means a Galilean peasant carpenter became Lord over the Empire that executed Him and became the single most influential person in human history.
How did He do that? For Christians, it's an everyday miracle one should expect from an omnipotent God. The Messiah was already foretold, and he was delivered to restore God's glory that it might cover the Earth. He's Aragorn, or Arthur, the once and future kings. Frodo isn't. Frodo is the protagonist living through this crap, and the possession of power ultimately destroys him. Even Gandalf can't touch it, as a prophet, or if he was the divine as you posit. There are secular reasons for why that would be a theme, and you've missed all of them. You might want to think about those, or ask.
Instead, you're trying to sandwich in a foreign religion, which I don't blame you for because all people are pretty much biologically designed to be religious, but it's also one Tolkien had no knowledge of. The author isn't dead. You can't just re-define all the characters and have any of this make sense. Frodo. Sam, and Gollum are not a trinity, much less a triune God. How would that work? Nobody ever gives them any recognition, most never even knew they existed. That was kind of their whole thing. They went beneath the gaze of power, which is pretty typical for protagonists amongst religious folks. They already know they don't have power themselves, it belongs to the Divine, but they can do their part no matter how humble they are.
Can you explain how those three are the yin and yang and also a trinity beyond just saying it? Whether your intent is sarcasm or you're being serious, it seems like you're only scratching at the surface of lessons from your near-death experiences. Imagine roughly 70,000 years of human near-death experiences eventually forming lasting cultures and religions. I pray you have the time you need to learn all this before you go, because it's a MUCH wider world than your perspective indicates, and one that made me truly awe the power of God.
@@arcdecibel9986 epic comment
Yes
Are you ever gonna talk about Black Metal bands that take their names/inspirations from LOTR/Tolkiens works?
Not likely. I have no taste for metal. 😅
@@TolkienLorePodcast How about just Led Zeppelin then?
@@TolkienLorePodcast all good my dude 👌 👍
@@cyntogia love that song. "The battle of evermore"
I might do something on Lee Zeppelin one of these days.
Tolkien Lore are you Catholic by chance? I am and I’ve often wondered that watching your videos
No, but I went to a Catholic law school so I learned a TON of Catholic doctrine 😂
@@TolkienLorePodcast I could tell that you were knowledgeable on the subject
Who is the Idiot. The one who sees only himself and puts himself first in his life.
Who is crazy. The one who lost everything and was left with only his mind.
From the words of a Catholic priest.
Lord Jesus / these words have the character of a private revelation / from the work of the Italian mystic Mária Valtorta/:
How much is there that is not in the Gospels or how much can be recognized from the Gospels only because they were pointed out, under the veil of thick silence, behind which the evangelists hid the episodes from my life. Because their hard Hebrew mentality prevented them from recognizing various other episodes.
Do you believe you know everything I have done?
Truly, I tell you, even if you read the whole work / the work of M. Valtorta / and accept this information about my earthly public life, you will still not know everything.
All the days of my actions, I communicated with effort, everything that I did on individual days, to my "little Jan"/ M. Valtorta/, so that she would share this knowledge with you!
John said: There are many other things that Jesus did. if someone could describe it all...
Believe me, not even all the books in the world would be enough for everything that a person would have to describe.
Believe me, if I were to describe all my deeds on earth, all my prayers and all my sacrifices, it would have to be a very large library on good pillars, so that all the books that would be written could be stored in it.
Let this work serve for spiritual leaders and those who care for the soul as a help for their mission, because it describes the diverse people who moved around me and the diverse means that I used to save them.
Because it would be folly for all souls to use the same method.
The art and method of bringing a righteous person to the perfection to which he himself wants to reach are different from those that a person uses with a religious person who is sinful or that should be used with a person who is a heathen.
And you have the Gentiles in great numbers with you.
.. you, as your Teacher, look at these pagans, poor people, who have replaced the true God with gods of POWER and COURAGE; GOLD, IMPURITIES and PRIDE for your knowledge.....
And again, some modern proselyte who has adopted Christian ideas, but does not belong to the church, will be saved otherwise.
Do not despise any sheep, least of all misguided sheep.
Love them and try to bring them back to the fold so that the Shepherd's wish will be fulfilled.
no
Yes
It's still quite the leap, and I believe it marginalizes many of the other deep themes which comprise the work. Also, both Tolkien senior and his wonderful son had plenty of time to make further statements as to the religious nature of the work, but chose to abstain. It's well known he distilled many of his favourite mythic and historical sagas, work, and philosophies, and the work is replete with these themes. Acknowledging the work is by a deeply spiritual Catholic, and contains many Catholic themes, it is still only one of the flavours in the pot, even if the boldest.
If you are to make claims and dismiss others so boldly and offhandedly, should you not have to answer to all the aspects of Middle Earth which directly contradict Catholic spirit? Because the work is splendidly full of this, too.
What in the story is contradictory to Catholicism?
@@TolkienLorePodcast Sorry, away for a few days. I mean, honestly the work contradicts Catholic thought in all but a few ways, and happy to further discuss that as I am, I might as well just cite Tolkein himself: letter 131 To Milton Waldman directly addresses the idea of Christian thought in his work several times, Ill quote a few passages here and leave a link
Your claim was that his story was full of things that *contradict* Catholicism. These quotes only prove that it lacks explicit reference to Catholicism. To take perhaps the worst example you give, the lack of anything about “controlling the reproductive rights of women,” the fact that nothing specifically calls out abortion as immoral is not proof that it is considered permissible in his stories. You’re just committing a long series of fallacies along the lines of “absence of evidence is the evidence of absence.” Indeed, his remark about the Valar specifically shows that he *was* making his story compatible with Christian thought, by pointing out that in the form they have in his story they are acceptable to a mind that believes in the trinity. Nor should we expect explicit Catholic worship since the events are pre-Old Testament fictional history, but there *is* worship (in Numenor particularly on the Meneltarma we get explicit references to worship of Eru). You’ll have to do better.
@@TolkienLorePodcast Sorry, did you not take the time to read the letter? And the quotes contain much more than that, if you were to give them any sort of fair reading. He directly says that Christian thought having entering Aurthurian legend was fatal, in the context of explaining how his work would do otherwise. He was quite clear that he was a profound catholic, he was also clear his work was not fundamentally catholic.
It's typically in poor form to attack the weakest point rather than the strongest, it's also a pretty dishonest fallacy to act as if the burden of proof would be to prove Catholicism is not present, rather than the burden of someone who supported that supposition to prove it. Somehow I'm not surprised. Also, even if there are many and obvious ways in which the writing contradicts Catholic thought, that does not mean there is no Catholic symbolism, or that the work is meant to be unintelligible to the catholic mind.
You can be as aggressively pseudo analytic as you like, but rendering Valar to be 'baldly understandable' to the Catholic mind =/= does not make them Catholic, they are baldly and deeply understood by pretty much anyone who has studies mythology, as Tolkien first acknowledges further up in the same paragraph with the quote about Valar, if you had read the source, that is, Tolkien's own words. Further, the Valar are introduced and named in a Homeric fashion in the Silmarillion, and given particular powers and dominions, echoing many older mythologies more specifically than Catholicism. Hindu, Norse, Greek and so on. Numenor is quite clearly related to the Atlantis myth, for a stark example, just as the fellowships has echoes of Homeric odyssey, and the Argonauts on their divine voyages, and on. There are wild elements of naturalism and paganism abound.
In response to the abortion idea, its equally true that the absence of that information should not leave us empowered to state the opposite. But Primarily, Eru is so vastly differed from the Catholic God, it's silly. Eru is not shown spiteful or hateful in any way, he demanded no worship. The Eru creation mythology presented no hell, or idea of retribution, no divine punishment. He did not appear to his children in disguise to test them, harshly or not. Pretty much all Evil can be traced back to Morgoth or Shelob, with Sauron of course doing his part later on, and as the quotes show, the story of the Fall, the men the elves and all, is explicitly different than the Catholic fall. The fall often being presented as one of the stronger Catholic echoes, Tolkien clearly says that it's only similar in the shallowest sense. Eru also seem to make sex and all it's ramifications less of their concern, I believe Eru and Tolkien say little on it.
But all this aside, Tolkien clearly communicated that he did not want his work to be understood as a trojan horse for Christianity. Yes, he was a devout Catholic, and so his work is suffused with some symbolic elements of Catholicism, but he was also a devout historian and student of the ancient poets, a professional philologist, a philosopher, and an artist. He made a brilliant work blending most of his passions and loves, but he distinctly wrote that it to the extent his work would carry Christian ideology is also the extent his work would fail, or die. Misunderstandings happen, but does it not seem too much to speak against the authors own written wishes? Do you really believe it to be Catholic soup, not the rich multifaceted Mytho-Poetic stew, with some Catholic spirit and spice, as he intended?
I don’t think we’re arguing the same thing here. I’m not arguing the work is a “Trojan horse” for Catholicism, which should have been clear if you watched my video. Did you? Or are you just reacting to a thumbnail? You also act like I’m shifting the burden of proof. I already put forth my evidence in my video. Then you come along and make a new claim that multiple elements of the story *contradict* Catholicism. It’s that statement for which you have the burden of proof, and your latest response doesn’t solve the issue, but rather repeats the same fallacies as the previous one, relying on the *absence of explicit reference* as proof of *contradiction.* You also imply I’m going against the author’s stated intentions, but I’m the one with a statement from the author himself literally confirming my thesis, not you. Tolkien quite literally told someone in a letter that his work was fundamentally religious and Catholic. So I have all the arguments I made in the video plus what Tolkien explicitly said. You have a string of fallacious arguments based on the absence of explicit religious references. If you’re sticking to your guns I don’t see any point in arguing. I can’t talk you out of a fallacy you can’t see when Tolkien’s own words contradict you. But if you’re arguing something different then clarify and maybe we can make progress.
Private message /Slovakia/: source confidential: 30/10/2021
TOLKIEN is a work for heathens, a good Christian has
other sources of knowledge, my daughter.
I am the INCARNATE Word of God, I am Your Jesus, daughter..
If your friend, a priest asks you whether your book is fundamentally catholic, you gonna tell him "Yeah, suuure. Of course!". That is a polite thing to do with consideration to his feelings and your friendship. When you are writing fiction, you gonna reflect the real world into it. There is so much content in Bible, that if you want, you can always find some similarity there to almost everything.
If that’s supposed to be a counterargument, it’s not.
First
Honestly, it was the built-in racism that bothered me even as a child -- all the "slant-eyed" slurs, all the blood line stuff. The main thing I respected about JK Rowling was her determined dismantling of that "pure blood" crap. It's not essentially Catholic, but it does go along with how socially regressive Tolkien was, which of course was not unrelated to his Catholicism.
(Don't get me wrong. There's plenty I appreciate in Tolkien, but I find that that regressiveness is present in enough places to limit how "applicable" -- as he would put it -- his story is.)
If you see racism there then I think the problem is yours, not Tolkien’s.
@@TolkienLorePodcast Not true. The whole blood line thing is the essence of racism, and it bothered me long before I had words or analysis for it. The "slant-eye" orc-people was pretty blatant. But thanks for telling me where you stand.
So is it “racism” to think thoroughbred horses are better performers?