[Bill Ferny]

Doug,

Yeah, there are a lot of questions [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

As far as the fall of Melkor having repercussions for the children of Eru… I don’t understand it myself. It is apparent that Melkor’s fall marred Arda, both in the music and with his physical presence, and as Mithadan so well illustrated, his fall becomes wrapped up into the being of Eru’s children, because they are made of the stuff of the earth, the very stuff that Melkor has stained. Elf/dwarf/human, therefore, are fallen from the time of their awakening, but by no conscious act of their own. Thus the condition of, with out committing the act of, original sin (or at least the original sin that a Christian would concieve). For one who would reduce Tolkien’s mythology to a Christian cosmology, this is a huge inconsistency, and indicates to me, at least, that Tolkien isn’t using as his primary source the Christian cosmology at all. Admittedly, the Christian cosmology allows for a much more just deity than Eru.

As far as punishment in life span, I’m really at a lose. Elves in the Silm, at least from my reading, and according to my take (which, of course, may be colored by my dwarven prejudice against elves) seems to demonstrate that there were more nasty elves than nasty men, or at least elves who acted wrongly with much less justification. Féanor was just a stinker. Men, however twisted or evil they became, never saw, never experienced what Féanor had seen and experienced in Valinor. It would seem since Féanor and his kin fell from such a height, that their fall would bring upon their race a much greater punishment than the what befell the human race that never aspired to such great stature in the eyes of the Valar.

In what year the Athrabeth was written is an important question. I tend to take seriously Christopher Tolkien’s words in the introduction to the Silm where he says that many of his father’s latter revisions and adaptations were colored by philosophical and theological speculation that was contrary to his original mythology. I’m not sure when it was written, but if it was a latter writing or fruit of these latter philosophical and theological speculations, then at least in my mind it would suspect. Perhaps Tolkien was trying to pound a square peg into a round hole.

(Choosing rightly: In Christian thought, especially that of Boetius, this aspect of freewill set Christian freewill apart from the mere practice of natural law. It was further developed by Saint Thomas Aquinas, Peter Abelard, and Jon Dons Scotus. Simply put, natural law enables humans to choose by the devices of human reason alone, greater goods. However, natural law alone cannot attain man’s true end, which is divination, or choosing The Good. Only via grace, the grace provided by the redemptive act of Christ, can human beings choose their ultimate final end (divination). Choosing rightly always included the will’s longing for divination, but the will can only be directed toward such an end given grace.)

Anyway, I think it can be argued that Tolkien’s cosmology is very much unchristian, and very much devoid of a principle of original sin, as is known by Christians. As Kalessin says, there is present an intuitive sense of creation, fall and redemption; I wouldn’t argue against it. But from a practical standpoint, Tolkien’s mythology is fundamentally different from the Christian mythos, and his work simply can’t be reduced to that model alone.