[QUOTE=Bill Ferny;42518]Darn it! Why don’t I notice these threads when they are new? Oh well.
In reply to the opening post:
I’ll take this as constructive criticism. It’s a shame, really. Catholic moral teachings regarding sexual intercourse is a single grain of sand on the vast shore of Catholic doctrine and theology. We Catholics really have to do a better job of letting people know what the Catholic Church is all about. (In fact, I’ve found that Catholics are the least prudish Christians I know!)
I understand what you are getting at. However, there are much more obvious ways of showing the non-Christian aspects of Tolkien’s mythology. For example, his treatment of fae/hroa… a far cry from a Christian anthropology; or his treatment of free will, the fallen world, sin, and redemption - his Pelagianism is worlds away from orthodox Christian belief. Your example of an “illicit” sexual affair between Beren and Lúthien is simply too vague from the written material.
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We hear of people getting married, so forth and so on, but never is an actual wedding described. “And Aragorn the King Elessar wedded Arwen Undómiel in the City of the Kings…” (RotK, VI, 5). That’s pretty brief on the description, kind of like a Tolkien battle scene, ey? The reason is, as Helen, points out by quoting HoME, the actual marriage was the sexual intercourse, not the ceremony. For Tolkien’s mythology, the romantic love between male and female constitutes the marriage. Believe it or not, but his isn’t too far from the Catholic notion of marriage. However, if marriage is determined by sexual intercourse only, then it is… well… Pelagian. Once again Tolkien proves his mythology is quite divergent from the Christianity that he practiced in real life.
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I don't have anything to say in regard to Catholics because I simply do not think of that religion. Not out of indifference, but simply focussed elsewhere. From what I have found written in regard to Palagius, I have noted that almost all historic written record concerning Palagius comes from his contemporary opponents. I find that he was concerned with WILL. Not 'will' that is concerned with every passion and desire concerning physical existence. Although I believe that gifts of Nature are not evil, even the seperation of humanity into male and female was a gift of Nature, at least, one might choose to look at it in this manner, and not be completely incorrect. Dang, I only wanted to give some small defense to Palagius and I'm lecturing instead. No, I'm being really brief, so I claim innocence to the charge of lecturing.
Each one of us have at our Heart of Being that WILL which is coeval to High Divinity. We are not seperate from it. Even when we fail at making a completely conscious accord and concord with That, it is still able, through interpermeability to guide us, and it is not so difficult to learn when to know this is happening. It is knowing what to listen to inside.