[tumhalad2]

Originally Posted by jallanite

Your list of Christian beliefs appears to represent what may be called Fundamentalist Christian beliefs or Biblical Literalist Christian beliefs. Most people who identify themselves as Christians don’t accept some of them or at least are uncertain of some of them.

As I said...

Originally Posted by jallanite

Tolkien was a self-identified Roman Catholic Christian and not a Biblical Literalist or Fundamentalist Christian. Like many Christians he was also a freethinker in many areas, rationalizing his own idiosyncratic beliefs as being in accord with his church or simply disagreeing with his church.

I agree, Tolkien certainly was an open thinker about many things, I never meant to stipulate otherwise.


Moreover, I don't disagree that many Christians believe many different things and always have. I was merely setting a baseline: these are some common Christian doctrines that have been widely believed throughout history. It is only in recent times that moderate Christians have even been able to reinterprete many biblical stories and dogmas less literally.

Originally Posted by jallanite

Your supposed list of what Christians believe is nonsense when applied to all churches and even to all members of most churches.

That's rediculous. Do most Christians not believe in an all-powerful, all loving god? Do most Catholics NOT believe in the virginal conception of Jesus? I'm not talking about reified theologians, I'm talking about the general beliefs of most people who call themselves Christians. Indeed, I don't disagree that Tolkien probably accepted modern geology and science, indeed he was a scientist, but most many Christians do indeed believe in a literalist take on the bible.

In any case this was not meant to be about religion and as I said the kinds of precepts I outlines are not going to describe all Christians.

Originally Posted by jallanite

If you really wish to understand Tolkien’s Christianity, then you should read all his writing carefully and note that, as people are usually polite about such things and not nosy and since Tolkien gave few interviews, there is not much information about his internal spiritual life.

You particularly should not assume the every Roman Catholic is a Biblical Literalist or Christian Fundamentalist. That shows enormous ignorance of religion as practised today.

I'm glad you're here to order me about. Did I ever say every Roman Catholic is a Biblical Literalist? No, strawman fallacy. Before you accuse me of ignorance, read my post carefully. In any case, and I'll reiterate, that list was meant as a baseline. Throughout history, Christians have believed some or all of these things. Tolkien probably didn't believe all of them, of course not, and that was not the point. But writers often talk about "Christianity" in Tolkien's work, so I was keen to make a list of some of the dogmas Christians have believed throughout history and interrogate Tolkien's work in light of them.

Moreover, as I mentioned, I was particularly interested in the moral vision of Christianity. Do Catholics, in general, not believe in the necessity of the atonement for sin? Do Catholics, in general, not believe that original sin is a real force in the world? Perhaps not nowadays in the era of psychology and other social sciences, but it's much more likely that Tolkien wouldh've believed in some variant of it.