Is Eru God?

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by davem

I don't think he even 'considered' it - it was so obvious to him that they were the same that he would assume his readers would understand that.

So he only ever contemplated Christians reading his tales? Or did he expect non-Christian readers to accept his "version" of God and thus draw nothing from it relevant to their own beliefs? Is this the same man who readily accepted the applicability of his stories in ways that he did not necessarily anticipate or intend?

Somehow, I see him as being more progressive than that. But perhaps I am labouring under a misapprehension ...

[davem]

Originally Posted by SpM

So he only ever contemplated Christians reading his tales? Or did he expect non-Christian readers to accept his "version" of God and thus draw nothing from it relevant to their own beliefs?

Think of his background & the society he lived in, the friends he had (Lewis, Barfield, Williams, etc). I don't think he contemplated a wide 'readership' at all - most of the time during the writing of it & in the years he spent trying to get it published - he felt it would never be read by 'the public' at all. In short, he wasn't writing for others, but principally for himself.

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by davem

Tolkien had a purpose - he intended his 'mythology' to do something, & that 'something' was to 'heal' his country. The TCBS wanted England back in Church.

Originally Posted by davem

I don't think he contemplated a wide 'readership' at all - most of the time during the writing of it & in the years he spent trying to get it published - he felt it would never be read by 'the public' at all. In short, he wasn't writing for others, but principally for himself.

[davem]

Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man

Taking the quotes out of context - I can see why you're so successful

The first quote was regarding Tolkien's original motivation pre- & during WW1, the second about his state of mind during the writing of LotR.

[Roa_Aoife]

We're back on topic! Yay!

You make a good point, Saucy, but allow me to explain from the perspective of one who has been raised in a Christian home. Is it really so difficult to believe that a person may take for granted a thought that is central to his ideaology, philosophy, and general out look on life?

I'll use a real life example: At one point, I was discussing future plans with an Agnostic friend of mine. She asked me what I was looking for in my wedding, should I ever have one. My requirements were simple- any month but May, and my uncle to serve as pastor. This confused my friend greatly, and she asked what a pastor would be doing there! She hadn't even considered a Christian wedding in a church, and I hadn't considered anything but. This isn't because I assumed she would have these things to (I knew better), but because I took my faith for granted. To me, it was obvious, as the connection between Eru and God would be obvious to Tolkien.

And as davem pointed out- Tolkien never really expected the books to be so popular.

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Fordie

What I see Tolkien striving for in LotR is not a particular sense of the Creator/God but for a more impersonal sense of the sacred: the landscape of Middle-Earth, the narrative itself, the peoples that we meet, the 'plan' that seems to guide history, the legends and history that the Elves inhabit all give off the odour of sanctity, even perhaps of divinity, without locating that sense within any single form or version of a god.

Agreed.

Originally Posted by Fordie again

In the Sil I think that Eru clearly was Tolkien's 'version' of God and was meant to be taken in that light.

But why would Tolkien not apply the same considerations that you set out at 1 to 4 in your post equally to the Silmarillion? While writing LotR, he anticipated his Silmarillion stories being published. Are you suggesting that he viewed the Silmarillion tales as being for a "specialist market" while LotR would have wider appeal? That does not come across in his Letters, those dealing with the possibility of both works being published, which suggest that he regarded them as intrinsic to each other.

[Roa_Aoife]

I agree with Saucy, but in the other direction. If it is clear that Eru is God in the Sil, then Eru must still be God in LoTR, not the other way around.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Originally Posted by Roa_Aoife

I agree with Saucy, but in the other direction. If it is clear that Eru is God in the Sil, then Eru must still be God in LoTR, not the other way around.

I agree, but the question I was addressing above was Hookbill's neat number 7 -- how did Tolkien intend for the reader to understand Eru? What I'm suggesting is that as Tolkien wrote the Sil he was thinking "Eru is God and the reader should be able to see that clearly" but when he was writing LotR he was thinking "Eru is God, but I'm going to leave it a bit fuzzy for the reader so he or she can find his or her own way into the text."

As to why he did it this way Saucy, I don't know, but I see no problem in it insofar as he was writing two different books: one more 'allegorical' and one more 'applicable'. He was striving for different effects in each so it makes sense to me that he would have different approaches to how he crafted them.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Fordim Hedgethistle

As to why he did it this way Saucy, I don't know, but I see no problem in it insofar as he was writing two different books: one more 'allegorical' and one more 'applicable'. He was striving for different effects in each so it makes sense to me that he would have different approaches to how he crafted them.

Ok, but this thread is discussing Eru & as Eru doesn't appear in LotR I'm not sure it gets us very far.

[Mister Underhill]

This is a little off-center, but one thing that fascinates me about the theology/morality of LotR is that Tolkien very deliberately made an effort to exclude overt, direct links to Christian religion:

...there was and is all the Arthurian world, but powerful as it is, it is imperfectly naturalized, associated with the soil of Britain but not with English; and does not replace what I felt to be missing. For one thing its 'faerie' is too lavish, and fantastical, incoherent and repetitive. For another and more important thing: it is involved in, and explicitly contains the Christian religion.

For reasons which I will not elaborate, that seems to me fatal. Myth and fairy-story must, as all art, reflect and contain in solution elements of moral and religious truth (or error), but not explicit, not in the known form of the primary 'real' world.

--Letter 131

I would claim, if I did not think it presumptuous in one so ill-instructed, to have as one object the elucidation of truth, and the encouragement of good morals in this real world, by the ancient device of exemplifying them in unfamiliar embodiments, that may tend to 'bring them home'.

--Letter 153

It's interesting to me that he found, or sensed, that the best way to talk about the truths that he held so dear was to not talk about them, if you take my meaning. To portray the underlying truth without the trapping, or in a different trapping. I don't know what that has to do with this discussion, just something that comes up for me as I read through the thread.

Also, I think some posters are taking the idea of the legendarium as pre-history a little too far. At some point you are forced to consider Tolkien's stories as "alternate history", no? I mean we have two creation stories at the very least which aren't reconcilable. There's no way for the Silmarillion to pre-date Genesis: "In the beginning..."

[Folwren]

There's been so much writing since I was last on here that I don't really want to read it all. So I won't, but I would like to say one last thing before going.

It is my understanding that Tolkien wrote about M-E and fashioned it so that Great Britain could have a mythological backround. If this is the case, this would be far before Jesus Christ was ever around, but also before anyone ever knew about God.

If that is the case, then I don't believe that Eru would be the equivilant of the Christain God, Jehovah. Tolkien (don't anybody leap on me because I'm about to write as if I actually knew what he thought, which I don't) wanted one god over all of Middle-Earth because it just made sense. However, he put many other gods below himself to take care and form the Earth - these gods, or Valar, were the gods of water, air, plants, and all the other things, much like the Romans and Greeks had, or the Indians and Chineese and whoever else have mythology and made up gods. I mean, he wanted his mythology to be like the other old ones, that is to say, he fashioned them after the old works (many titles have been brought up here).

And I'm not writing this down very well, but see here. God doesn't apoint different angels over all the different things on Earth -weather, sun, moon, what not - but directs them all himself. The Valar did all that kind of work. Eru remained far off and distant, watching the Valar and their progess, but really taking little part in it most of the time. That is different than God ever was, even before Jesus came. God did talk to his people BC, and he didn't leave their fates in the hands of his subordinates.

This post is a bit unclear - had a late night last night, but it's all I can give you just now.

-- Folwren

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by davem

The first quote was regarding Tolkien's original motivation pre- & during WW1, the second about his state of mind during the writing of LotR.

Fair 'nuff.

Although, given the success of The Hobbit, he must have had some conception while writing LotR that it would attract a modest readership, at the very least, and that this would most probably include Atheists, Agnostics and Jews, if not those of other faiths.