'The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy'

[mark12_30]

In letter 156, after a discussion of the decline of Numenorean religious practices and Gondorian refusal to create temples or worship anything created or any 'dark lord'or satanic demon. He then speaks of the third age during and after the War of the Ring:

...the Shadow will arise again (as foretold by Gandalf), but never again (unless it be before the great End) will an evil daemon be incarnate as a physical enemy... But if you imagine people in such a mythical state, in which Evil is largely incarnate, and in which physical resistance to it is a major act of loyalty to God, I think you would have the 'good people' in just such a state: concentrated on the negative: the resistance to the false, while 'truth' remained more historical and philosophical than religious.

Hence, Tolkien connects resistance to the false, the shadow, as being a major act of loyalty to God. The context is a discussion of The Third Age.

Other than that, I don't think it is fruitful for this thread to engage in an argument over the greater virtue of faith or atheism

Clearly the Professor had an opinion on the relation of faith with morality, for instance, Letter 310:

With that we come to religion and the moral ideals that proceed from it.

or to speculate on Tolkien's private, personal thought, to which we are not the ones who have (or had) access.

He gives us that access in his letters. For instance:

Letter 246:

Frodo indeed 'failed' as a hero, as comvceived by simple minds; he gave in, ratted. I do not say 'simple minds' with contempt: they often see with clarity the simple truth and the absolute ideal to which effort must be directed, even if it is unattainable. Thier weakness, however, is twofold. They do not percive the complexity of any given situation in Time, in which an absolute ideal is enmeshed. They tend to forget that strange element in the World that we call Pity or Mercy, which is also an absolute requirement in moral judgement (since it is present in the Divine nature). In its highest exercise it belongs to God. For finite judges of imperfect knowledge it must lead to the use of two different scales of 'morality'."

He continues with his description of these two scales, and then returns to his discussion of Frodo's 'failure' at the Sammath Naur.

Note the following:

... Pity or Mercy, which is also an absolute requirement in moral judgement (since it is present in the Divine nature).

All of Letter 310 is another fascinating treatment of morality flowing from religion, but since the Professor does not delve into Middle-Earth as such, I will not quote more of it here.

[ October 29, 2003: Message edited by: mark12_30 ]