Tolkien’s theory on fairy stories and their purpose to promote elements of moral truth was known in academic circles since the 1940s. Tolkien himself acknowledged the fact that his Middle-earth novels were written as a manifestation of this theory (or partly, also the other way round: the theory written to justify his story-making). Nonetheless, the critical interest in this aspect of his writing developed slowly. The first reviewers to point out the moral value of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit were some of Tolkien’s friends and colleagues, such as C. S. Lewis or W. H. Auden. But the topic began to be more extensively researched only after the author’s death and especially since the last decade of the 20th century. (1)
The lists of research and scholarly publications (2) analyzing Tolkien’s work show that its Christian inspiration was recognized from the beginning. Yet the first significant wave of scholarly works exploring it came in the 1970s in an attempt to show the true value of Tolkien’s work and defend it from misinterpretation by the previous decade’s hippie movements, who appropriated The Lord of the Rings as one of their symbols. (3) The research was later enhanced with the publication of The Silmarillion in 1977 and Tolkien’s letters in 1981, which provided a better insight into the writer’s thinking and the philosophy behind his writing. The academic interest in the work’s Christian motives constantly increased throughout the 1990s, with another boom after the 2001-2003 release of Peter Jackson’s movie adaptations of The Lord of the Rings. Since then, a great portion of research has focused on comparing the depictions of the religious motives between the books and the movies. Another peculiar trend of the new century is the emergence of a kind of devotionals (4) inspired by Tolkien’s books; examples include Sarah Arthur’s books Walking with Frodo (2003) and Walking with Bilbo (2005), or Mark E. Smith’s Tolkien’s Ordinary Virtues (2002).
However, more than the moral implications of Tolkien’s stories, most of the scholarly writings explore rather their religious allegorism (so much disliked by Tolkien). In general, based on the elements they focus on, there can be identified 6 main categories of analysis of Christian motives in Tolkien’s work:
- Tolkien’s remaking of the myth of the creation of the world from Genesis in his Ainulindalë. This category includes writers like Peter J. Kreeft and Stratford Caldecott, whose work will be discussed in more detail later.
- Tolkien’s use of the so-called Christ-figure; that is, the images of Christ as reflected in Tolkien’s various characters. In addition to the two aforementioned writers, scholars who provide a significant insight on this element are Joseph Pearce and Louis Marcos.
- The hidden presence of God, represented by Eru Illúvatar, in Middle-earth and its seemingly absent (but in fact implicitly present and all-penetrating) religion. This feature is often related to the previous point.
- All other (more or less) obvious Christian symbolism. This category includes the analysis of the images of Saint Mary, Jesus’ mother, and other saints; finding parallels between angels and Ainur or Elves; or the application of various religious concepts (such as the Augustinian image of the City of God, or the Aquinian idea of True King). Scholars who explored these elements include Charles W. Moorman, Paul H. Kocher, Clyde S. Kilby, and Ralph C. Wood. Also, the third section of Jane Chance’s essay collection Tolkien the Medievalist (2003), is dedicated to the research of the Christian motives.
- The Christian understanding of the nature of the Fallen Man and the purpose of his life. Publications that deal with this topic often compare Tolkien to other Christian writers, such as Lewis, Chesterton, or Milton, as the likely sources of his inspiration.
- Last (but not the least), the discussion of the nature of good and evil and moral values in Tolkien’s work. The following pages will provide a closer look at some key publications that fall into the last two categories.
In fact, it is very difficult to draw any clear boundaries between these topics; they are all necessarily interrelated, and as such they are also examined in the research. If one wants to study the reasons why Tolkien interwove the Christian elements into his writing, they will naturally come to discuss his understanding of the nature of the Fallen Man and the aftermaths of the first sin on the whole world, and from that slip to the problem of creation versus sub-creation and his theory on fairy stories, and from that to his perceived purpose of art in general and his writing in particular.
Three major works that explore the underlying Christianity of Tolkien’s writing are Joseph Pearce’s Tolkien: Man and Myth (1998), Peter J. Kreeft’s The Philosophy of Tolkien (2005) and Stratford Caldecott’s The Power of the Ring (2012, originally published in 2003 as Secret Fire: The Spiritual Vision of J.R.R. Tolkien). While each of these works provides a comprehensive scholarly study, they are intended for non-academic readership and present themselves rather as guides to a deeper reading of Tolkien’s stories and the understanding of his theology. (5) Another thing they have in common is that they acknowledge Tolkien’s theology as classical, orthodox. (6) Pearce’s book is conceived as Tolkien’s biography, emphasizing his Catholicism as one of the key factors behind his popularity, and thus serves as a good introduction to the topic. Kreet and Caldecott identify The Lord of the Rings as a Catholic novel based on the definition by Flannery O’Connor, who claims that a Catholic novel needs not be set in a Christianized world but it is one in which the Christian truth is used as a “light to see the world by” (Caldecott, 2012, p. 72). This is likely due to the fact that Caldecott was building on Pierce and Kreeft’s insights. As a result, probably deeming the matter discussed well in Kreeft’s book (and also because his aim was different), Caldecott moved directly to discussing some Christian symbols in Tolkien’s work (point 3 of my categorization above). Kreeft tried to defend the religious nature of the novel using Aristotle’s Four Causes. He showed that The Lord of the Rings is religious according to three of them:
- The material cause, that is the subject matter, for it is about the fight between good and evil and the nature of the Fallen World.
- The formal cause, for the structure, setting, plot and characters of the story manifest the rule of Providence.
- The efficient cause, for he admits that the novel might be partially divine-inspired.
The only point in which, according to Kreeft, the novel fails to justify as Christian is the final cause, or the purpose, for it was not originally intentionally written to be such (even though the writer avowed it can be read as such). Kreeft provided a solid, surprisingly secular, philosophical theory to vindicate what almost all Tolkienists perceive to be true about Tolkien’s writing, based on his comparison with other Christian writers. For example, Donald Williams (2006) compares Tolkien’s theology with Lewis’s and Chesterton’s, and Alison Milbank (2009) draws parallels between Tolkien’s and Chesterton’s employment of poetics and literary tropes. Though, it must be admitted that even Kreeft at some points calls to Lewis’s theological works to support his arguments (for instance in the questions on the purpose of human life), just as Williams. Here I refer the reader to my formerly published article “An Inkling of Humanity: Tolkien’s Catholic Novel” (https://fellowshipandfairydust.com/2021/02/18/an-inkling-of-humanity-tolkiens-catholic-novel/) for detailed discussion of that matter.
Criticism of Tolkien’s Ethics
Speaking of the research of Tolkien’s ethics, here I need to mention one outstanding (though rather in a negative sense) article: Walter Scheps’s “The Fairy-tale Morality of the Lord of the Rings” (1975). The fact that this work is from the early stages of Tolkienist research can be a partial excuse for its opinions that mostly contradict all later research. While the aforementioned scholars believe that the morality of Tolkien’s stories is essentially the same as ours, Scheps claimed that it did not conform to human values (although admitting that it is internally consistent). Moreover, any apparent similarities are rather accidental and the morality of Middle-earth is irrelevant to the real world. He accused it of being paternalistic, reactionary, anti-intellectual, racist, and fascist. Scheps was also one of the critics who argued that Tolkien’s good and evil are too clearly and generically defined. In The Lord of the Rings, it is easy to tell whether a character is good or evil based on his colour (evil creatures are dark and disfigured, good ones are beautiful and radiate some inner light), manner of speaking (evil ones speak ungrammatically, good ones speak in high, archaic style), geographical origin (the West is good, South and East evil), and race (orcs, trolls, Easterlings, and Southrons are evil; Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits and Men from Rohan and Gondor are generally good).
On one hand, Scheps criticized such geographical, colour, and racial associations of good and evil; on the other hand, he tried to defend it, pointing out that Tolkien’s stories employ the typical features of classical fairy-tale morality (7); making the point of his article ambivalent. Indeed, he presented a number of interesting ideas, but did not fully explore them. Otherwise, Scheps would have found out that most of his observations can also be explained in other ways than in the terms of traditional fairy-tale symbolism. While it is true that Tolkien did make a conscious use of it, the meaning behind his stories was shaped by other theories, especially Christian philosophy. So the association of light (whiteness to good and dark or blackness to evil) comes rather therefrom. As for the apparent geographical and racial associations of good and evil, these I think can be logically explained on account of the historical-political development of Middle-earth. For example, Scheps attributed the fact that the Black Riders entered the Shire from the East and Saruman’s men from the South to the moral symbolism, but that is only logical since they are situated to the South-East from the Shire; so, the validity of his argument cannot be proved. In addition, Scheps’s generalization of goodness/badness of races is implausible. He did not take into consideration the existence of such characters as Gríma Wormtongue or Bill Ferny, who are evil-minded despite their origin.
Scheps further criticized Tolkien’s good characters for trusting only knowledge which is not empirically verifiable and has no application in the real world, such as old stories or the voice of the heart (some kind of divine knowledge which we could now liken to the inspiration by Tao, unjustifiable in our world ruled by science), and fearing to seek and use the knowledge of nature’s secrets and technology which the evil pursues (even though Scheps acknowledges its corrupting power). The whole article’s feeling of ambivalence is added to by Scheps’ comments that the good ones abide by the limitations of power imposed upon them by natural hierarchy in which nobility depends on lineage rather than deeds, which makes it sound like something negative; immediately followed by the statement that evil is more progressive because it tries to go beyond the hierarchical restraints. However, in doing so, it seriously disrupts the natural order, which is much worse. Unlike his contemporary Purtill (2011, p. 104), who praised the “dance” of subordination in which the more noble characters such as Aragorn are not ashamed to make themselves servants of others and become equals in charity, Scheps (1974, p. 48) was not aware of this and claimed that the only example of equality was slavery under Sauron’s dominion.
Scheps arrived at the conclusion that the evil in Middle-earth was more powerful than the good exactly because of its use of hidden technological knowledge and tactical advantage in taking initiative and attacking first, but foremost because it seeks to subvert and corrupt, which he finds more difficult than creating. That contradicts everything Tolkien said on the matter of creation and sub-creation. This indicates that Scheps probably did not read Tolkien’s lecture “On Fairy-Stories” (or if he did, he completely misunderstood it). Scheps also ignored Tolkien’s opinion that evil cannot be overcome by its own devices, proclaiming it the only way to destroy the enemy. Yet it must be admitted that Scheps likely meant that evil undoes itself by getting lost in its own lies and traps, as he mentioned elsewhere in the text. Two more points in which Scheps agreed with other scholars are that evil is incapable of understanding good, and that human power can only temporarily defeat it; although he did not realize it is a Christian approach to the understanding of the nature of evil.
1. This copies the general trend in the field of Tolkien studies which started to develop in the 1960s with the foundation of the first Tolkien societies both in the US and the UK. These societies issued journals from the very beginning, and started organising semi-academic conventions. Many of the journals transformed into serious scholarly publications in the late 1980s and 1990s. Tolkienist research expanded all the more with the release of the movies in the 2000s.
2. Such as the list of recommended readings presented by the official Tolkien Society site (https://www.tolkiensociety.org/author/books-about-tolkien/) or the one compiled by Tolkien Gateway contributors (http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Index:Writings_by_year).
3. Source: http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Tolkien_Society. Here, the true value of Tolkien’s work refers to its function as a moral guide. His work is not to be interpreted as an allegory of any real-world military conflict or as an anti-war manifesto.
4. Originally, a devotional was a book collecting short religious services as a reflection and explanation of certain Biblical (or other religious books’) passages (https://today.reframemedia.com/blog/what-is-a-devotional). In this case, the devotionals provide short meditations on some religious elements of Tolkien’s stories, point out their allusion to Biblical stories, and derive from them some lessons to help the readers improve their ordinary spiritual life.
5. Actually, Kreeft identifies four possible uses of his book. Besides it being a reader’s guide and a scholarly research on Tolkien’s work, it can also serve as an introduction to philosophy which uses excerpts from Tolkien’s and Lewis’s books to exemplify answers to 50 philosophical questions (Kreeft, 2005, p. 10-12).
6. Like, after all, most of the critical works concerned with his theology.
7. Scheps justifies its appeal referring to Aristotle’s idea of man as a categorizing animal who desires the absolutization of categories. Fairy tales satisfy this need by providing a clear moral categorization in comparison with the frustrating complexity of the real world.