'The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy'

[Child of the 7th Age]

We may be running into problems because we're trying to carry on a discussion framed in terms of one overarching question. To my mind, there are at least three separate issues involved here, which need to be dealt with individually

• Tolkien's view on the relation of religion and morality in terms of his personal life and beliefs.
  
• The extent to which Tolkien portrayed the general framework of Arda and its moral underpinnings as having been determined by Eru.
  
• The relation of religious beliefs and/or worship to morality in terms of the individual characters and their choices.
  

Helen,

Several of the quotes you provided definitely tie in with the first two questions. I think few would dispute that, in his own life, Tolkien regarded religion as the single more important factor shaping and influencing his moral choices and actions.

Similarly, reading over the early pages of the Silmarillion, the reader is left with no doubt that Eru is the creator of Arda. He is the one who understands the music in a way no other does; it is said that even those who think they are rebelling against his plan will find their actions turned around and mysteriously used to advance Eru's intentions.

With the third question, we're in a different realm, at least as far as the late Third Age goes. Tolkien consistently states:

(....there is practically no overt 'religion', or rather religious acts or places or ceremonies among the 'good' or anti-Sauron peoples in The Lord of the Rings

There were two reason for this. First, because of what happened in the Second Age, with the worship of a 'dark lord', good Men refused to partake in any worship for fear it could be perverted. Secondly, Eru generally kept himself at a distance from Arda. Tolkien explained:

The immediate 'authorities' are the Valar (the Powers or Authorities): the 'gods'. But they are only created spirits--of high angelic order we should say, with their attendent lesser angels--reverend, but not worshipful...

As a Catholic, Tolkien could not bring himself to create a world in which beings less than Eru would be worshipped. As a result, although God or providence occasionally acts behind the scenes in LotR, it is only in the most extreme situations and in very veiled ways. There is a note in Letter 153 which goes into this in depth. Let me quote just a small piece which stresses how distant Eru is...

There are thus no temples or "churches" or fanes in this 'world' among 'good' peoples. They had little or no 'religion' in the sense of worship. For help they may call on a Vala.... But this is a 'primitive age': and these folk may be said to view the Valar as children view their parents or immediate adult superiors, and though they know they are subjects of the King he does not live in their country nor have there any dwelling. I do not think Hobbits practised any form of worship or prayer (unless through exceptional contact with Elves)....

All this has implications for the whole question of the relationship of religion and morality in terms of The Lord of the Rings. The "good" characters in the book are exceedingly moral. As Aragorn put it, right does not change from one age to the next..., but this morality did not rest on formal religious beliefs or worship, since the latter simply did not exist in Middle-earth. And nowhere was this more true than in the Shire; Bilbo and Frodo and Sam were exceedingly unusual in even knowing a few tales and names of the Valar.

Yet what the Shirelings lacked in belief or knowledge, they made up for with a basic goodness and morality. In some ways the hobbits, with all their silliness, put modern men to shame. Would that we could say no man had killed another for the past 500 years!

In the Letters, Tolkien clearly states that none of the rest of the story makes sense--the entire struggle to be rid of the Ring-- without the Shire standing in the background. The meaning of the whole tale, the reason why Frodo struggled on, is that he could not bear to see the goodness and morality of the Shire destroyed. So Tolkien can and does depict decent men who struggle to act in a moral way out of some innate goodness rather than any formal belief system or mode of worship.

I do not doubt that Tolkien viewed resistence to the shadow as an act of loyalty to God. But this was not something the hobbits themselves were consciously aware of, since they had no knowledge of who Eru was, either in terms of his nature or deeds. Tolkien himself says "the Third Age was not a Christian world", but rather one of "natural theology" (Letter 165), and this natural stance, devoid of revelation, is something all of us can understand and appreciate, whatever our individual religious views.