Quote:
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Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man
But, since Fordim has already implicitly accused me of fence-sitting (unreasonably, in my view, as I was simply seeking to determine the nature of the question that I was being asked to answer  ), I dare not risk further such lawyer-baiting taunts. |
I didn't accuse you of fence-sitting but of being a solicitor. But don't get me wrong, I love lawyers. I even married a lawyer.
As to Eru-as-Tolkien's-God...if you want to see where he got Him just have a read through
Beowulf.
Squatter would be able to explain this much better (and in far more informed a fashion) than I, but the God we find in
Beowulf is definitely the Christian God, but one who:
a) never seeks a personal relationship with his creation(s),
b) doesn't get directly involved with the battle between good and evil,
c) stands by and allows the most horrific monsters to ravage the land,
d) stands by as the people who destroy those monsters are themselves destroyed by the task,
e) nobody prays to or worships in a church, but everybody sings about and praises with their bards, and
f) is embraced by a culture and a people who believe whole-heartedly that the real meaning of life is found in the acts we do while alive, not where we go when we die, and that honour (how one is spoken of by others) is more important than conscience (how one thinks of oneself).
That's why I have no problem seeing Eru as Tolkien's version of God. This might also explain why Tolkien had a particular love for Mary (as did many people in the "Dark Ages"), insofar as she provides a much more merciful and personal, even human, presence than God: the "world-cyning of Middeneard" (my spelling is all off there -- where
is Squatter?)