*digs up old CL 121 notes*
Quote:
Originally Posted by Morthoron
Well then, given Tolkien's ardent Catholicism, would you prefer the post to be analyzed from the point of view of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy or Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica? Given his philosophical bent, I think Tolkien would have preferred Boethius (more Platonic than Aristotlean).
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So Catholicism=Boethius? Pardon me, I'm Catholic. I don't like Boethius. I think it's kinda a joke--a very flat view of Poetry, by God! The Muses were pagan, they and the arts catered to sensuous and earthly interests, Philosophy is the true medicine of the soul. I don't think Tolkien would have preferred Boethius. I think he'd prefer old Thomas, compared to Boethius: neither the eternity of the world nor the contrary could be demonstrated by pure logic; the bible provides teh necessary authoritative info on that point. The soul is the form of the body (Aristotelian), but the soul is immortal. All in all, his teaching on this matter is closer to Augustine and his Christian Neo-Platonism.
But I think it's to old Augustine he may be most drawn. Augustine's Christian Neo-Platonism (or was it Plotinus'? Help!) said that the universe is hierarchical,
1. Bodies, which are least unified, many, can always be fragmented into parts, can always perish
2. Souls, also fragmented, but not as badly as bodies. Souls are absorbed into bodies; without it they are weak. Unified they are powerful as they turn to contemplate forms in the intellect above
3. Intellect. Eternally and uninterruptedly contemplates the intelligible forms within it and is thus identical with them (intellect=intelligible world)
4. The One. So unified it cannot be articulated.
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Now doesn't it sound a bit like Tolkien?
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My point, which you lot may have missed--and I don't blame you!--the first post is kinda like... a joke.