Resonances of Universalism in Tolkien's Legendarium
What Up What Up Tolkien Poppers,
In the midst of a crazy world, I hope that spring is bringing the hints of nice weather and flowers to you. Here in Tennessee, we’re just starting to get some flowers on some of the trees - which means that my lawn will need seeing to shortly. I’m already attempting to channel my inner Samwise in preparation!
Today I want to share with you the paper I presented at Holy Moot last weekend in Charleston, SC. I met some amazing scholars and fans, and even made some new friends. It was a good time and I’m excited to share this paper with y’all.
I specifically get into the Christian doctrine of universalism and I argue how we can read aspects of that doctrine in Tolkien’s writings. I also present a philosophical theory in interpreting Tolkien’s works, so it’s gonna get very nerdy, so I hope you’ve brought your pipe-weed and pint glass to accompany you on your read. Enjoy!
March 25th is Tolkien Reading Day, which is one of the most fun days on the Tolkien calendar! Each year the Tolkien Society comes up with a theme and then encourages people around the world to share their favorite passages from Tolkien’s writing with others pertaining to the that theme. This year’s theme is Fellowship and Community and Jordan Rannells, the creator of A Long-Expected Soundscape is hosting a livestream with a ton of members of the Tolkien community to perform their favorite readings throughout the day. You can catch the livestream here:
And now, onto today’s post!
Navigating the thought of any person, alive or dead, is one of the greatest challenges of being a human in relationship with others. However, working with the thought of a dead person substantially intensifies this challenge and thus, here we are to meet that challenge. My current attempt at meeting this challenge is working out what Tolkien was explicitly or subconsciously thinking regarding eschatology in his writing. Specifically, I want to examine where Tolkien’s writings resonate with the eschatological doctrine of Christian Universalism. I will primarily survey writings pertaining to his legendarium with brief references to writings outside of the legendarium including his fiction, academic work, and letters. In doing so, I want to perform and promote a methodology that does not aim for an a priori reconciliatory approach between what is usually dichotomously categorized as Tolkien’s fiction and his nonfiction writings. Rather, I want to argue that all Tolkien’s writings be investigated separately in their context, comparing the location of each item under investigation—in this case instances of theologies that echo universalism—with one another, and explore their connections without syncretizing them into a monolithic construct. I will do this by arguing for a hermeneutical theory rooted in the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead by connecting his understanding of the expression of language with Tolkien’s own understanding of expression as an essential part of the concept of sub-creation.
Like many of the doctrines within Christian traditions, there are more than one version of universalism. There are others who have written about Tolkien’s potential universalism within the legendarium, but I want to expand upon those writings to argue that the passages examined here will ring of what is termed a “patristic universalism,” i.e., a universalism with roots in the writings of the fathers of the early church that has carried with it influence in the development of specifically Catholic doctrine. Historical theologian Morwenna Ludlow summarizes the general concern for patristic universalists:
“Although early Christian theologians were clearly concerned for the fates of their neighbors, their universalism typically had a thoroughly cosmic dimension, opening out beyond a concern for contemporary humans to the whole human race (past and future); to all rational creation (including angels and—sometimes—fallen angels); and, in some cases, to a hope for the renewal of the whole creation. This cosmic hope was the form in which early universal salvation was typically expressed…”1
Tolkien’s concept of “Arda Healed” fits within the patristic articulation of universalism as the religious diversity in the legendarium is extremely sparse and all of Arda and its inhabitants are the participants named in the traditions that purport Arda Healed.
Many of the passages from Tolkien’s legendarium that I will be exploring are of the usual suspects pertaining to the Dagor Dagorath or The Last Battle at the end of the world and the debate between Finrod and Andreth in Morgoth’s Ring since it is Tolkien’s latest dealing with the eschatology of Eӓ. To avoid redundancy, I will lay out a selection of these passages that will be surveyed, indicate where they are from, and provide commentary on them in relation to their textual history.
In the published Silmarillion, The Last Battle is first mentioned in the chapter “Of Aulë and Yavanna.” In it, following the making of the Dwarves by Aulë and their adoption by Eru, it is said that the Dwarves believe that after they die they will wait in a place of their own in The Halls of Mandos until the End. “Then their part shall be to serve Aulë and to aid him in the remaking of Arda after the Last Battle” (Silmarillion, 42). Not only is this a glimpse into an Arda Healed, but also into its incorporation of those of a different origin than Elves and Men. Although Eru adopts the Dwarves, making them Children of Ilúvatar, their relationship to Eru and destiny differ from Elves and Men. Where the relationship between Eru and destiny also differs between Elves and Men, both share similar traditions and lore–especially Men of Númenorean descent–lessening the margins of difference between them. The distance of difference closes further since Elves and Men are biologically the same species. In addition, Dwarves also have different names for the Valar, e.g., calling Aulë “Mahal.” This distinction goes beyond linguistics as Dwarves clearly have differing views pertaining to the destiny of Arda, themselves, and others throughout the legendarium than Elves and Men, contributing to the small portion of data within the legendarium that can be loosely categorized as religious diversity.
As opposed to modern theology, the destiny of the religious other is not the sole focus of patristic universalism. However, “early Christians did ponder the destiny of those who died before the advent of Jesus Christ and of good pagans” (2). Tolkien does not construct complex religious systems in the legendarium, but they do exist. Whether one assents to the idea of Arda as a truly pre-Christian fantasy world or not, faithful adherence to the will of Eru as given through his regents–particularly the Valar–is the proper “religious” posture. As all conscious beings in the legendarium are pagan, i.e., not Christian, the cosmic dimension of the destiny of the diverse peoples of Arda are relevant to the consideration of their universal incorporation into the eschaton of the legendarium. The Dwarves are a key example of this factor as their destiny resembles the twentieth-century Catholic theologian Karl Rahner’s concept of the “anonymous Christian,” which influenced Roman Catholic approaches to interreligious dialogue during Vatican II, a council Tolkien was not fond of, albeit his frustration with the Second Vatican Council seems to stem almost exclusively from his feelings towards the reforms in the liturgy of the Mass (Letters, 476-477).2 Interestingly, in a footnote to Letter #250 to his son Michael, where Tolkien dismisses Vatican II in light of the work of Pope Pius X, Tolkien claims “God cannot be limited (even by his own Foundations)...and may use any channel for His grace” (Letters, 476). He then gives the caveat that faith in Jesus Christ as provided through the Roman Catholic Church is still the ordained course of Christianity. Framing the Dwarves as sort of “anonymous Children of Ilúvatar” with this letter in mind can lead to a connecting of Tolkien’s theological commitments in the primary world to the theological formulations in his secondary one while sharing a particular angle to a patristic universalism.
One of the more popular passages for those arguing for universalism in Tolkien’s writings is a statement from Finrod in “Athrabeth Finrod Ah Andreth”:
“If we are indeed the Eruhin, the Children of the One, then He will not suffer Himself to be deprived of His own, not by an Enemy, not even by ourselves” (Morgoth, 320).
This statement echoes Tolkien’s own claim about God’s grace in Letter #250. And although the Athrabeth was written after the publication of The Lord of the Rings and is placed within a conversation that acknowledges various views of the nature of incarnated beings and the destiny of Elves and Men, Christopher Tolkien claims in its introduction that “[the Athrabeth] is a major and finished work, and is referred to elsewhere as if it had for my father some ‘authority’” (Morgoth, 303). And since this text was written during the time in which Tolkien was attempting to further shape the legendarium through theological and philosophical consistency (Morgoth, viii), it is not difficult to see that some of Tolkien’s own theological commitments and his wrestling with them seeped into the Athrabeth.
In Carl Hostetter’s first appendix to The Nature of Middle-earth entitled “Metaphysical and Theological Themes,” he says,
“I take it that Tolkien is saying that The Lord of the Rings and, by extension, his broader legendarium…is at its core and foundation, or…in its essential nature, based on religious, and specifically Catholic, beliefs and thought” (Nature, 402; italics original).
Rather than explicitly constructing the legendarium and, later, its revision as being consistent with a particular view of Christian revelation or with the purpose of being a tool for Catholic evangelism, I concur with Hostetter that Tolkien recognized his faith to be an essential part of his nature. Therefore, the legendarium as a sub-created secondary world would naturally be shaped by his self-understanding.
Like histories, metaphysical and theological claims, and predictions about the future, the self is not fully revealed and grasped by a self or another. Logic and experience do not always coincide, making knowledge difficult to obtain. In “Note 8” to the Athrabeth, Tolkien presents experience as an epistemological authority within the Elvish experience:
“Actually the Elves believed that the ‘lightening of the heart’ or the ‘stirring of joy’ (to which they often refer), which may accompany the hearing of a proposition or an argument, is not an indication of its falsity but of the recognition by the fea [the Quenya word for soul] that it is on the path of truth” (Morgoth, 343).
Because Finrod experiences the ‘stirring of joy’ in the deep hope or estel of the eschatological reconciliation of the created world, Arda Healed is seen as an authoritative claim for the destiny of all created beings. On the other hand, Andreth’s wisdom tradition does not contain the hopeful eschatology that Finrod’s does, therefore making the end of the history of Arda a mystery as it is in the primary world.
This mystery is complicated further with the various versions related to The Last Battle and the doom of Morgoth. In the Quenta, one of the early versions of The Silmarillion dated circa 1930, it is said in the Second Prophecy of Mandos, which is not included in The Silmarillion, that Túrin Turambar will come from the Halls of Mandos to fight alongside Tulkas and Fionwë (who would become Eönwë ) during The Last Battle “and it shall be the black sword of Túrin that deals unto Melko his death and final end” (Shaping, 198). Whereas in the later writings in the Annals of Aman, written circa 1950-1951, Tolkien amends this prophecy to say,
“Varda took the light that issued from Telperion…and she made stars newer and…greatest of these was Menelmakar, the Swordsman of the Sky. This…was the sign of Túrin Turambar, who shall come into the world, and a foreshadowing of the Last Battle that shall be at the end of Days…and a token of the doom of Melkor” (Morgoth, 71).
For universalism to truly be cosmic, this must include all beings, including Satan and fallen angels–in this case, Melkor and the Ainur that follow him. It is unclear what the fate of Melkor is within the textual history. This is not only because of conflicting or ambiguous accounts, but also metaphysical issues. In Letter #211, Tolkien claims that Eru cannot annihilate a soul (Letters, 400). So, how, if Melkor’s death is his true fate, can he be “killed?” It is not my intention to answer this question, but to offer the possibility for a reading of universalism for all creation as the Second Prophecy of Mandos becomes less clear about Melkor’s fate as Tolkien continued to revise it.
Matthew Distefano points out in a Patheos article entitled “Was J.R.R. Tolkien a Universalist?” that in the chapter “Fog on the Barrow-Downs” in Book I of The Lord of the Rings, Tom Bombadil, when exorcizing the Barrow-wights from the chamber in which Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin were captured, sings,
“Lost and forgotten be, darker than the darkness,
Where gates stand for ever shut, till the world is mended” (FR, 197).
“In other words, the gates of the Void are shut forever . . . until they are not.”3Could this mean that Melkor will be restored to his original state before his corruption? I concur with Tadeusz Andrzej Olszański that “This we do not and shall never know.”4
However, a variety of Tolkien’s writings make room for progressive personal transformation in life and after death.
“Much patristic universalism is driven by a belief in the possibility that God can work a progressive transformation of his whole creation…it is this that preserves the particularity of salvation alongside its cosmic scope.”5
For some of the patristics, divine punishment after death had a pedagogical purpose, meant to perfect its subject rather than be an eternal conscious torment. Tolkien embraced and understood this kind of eschatological transformation through the doctrine of purgatory. In Tolkien’s Faith: A Spiritual Biography, Holly Ordway develops Tolkien’s purgatorial themes in “Leaf By Niggle”:
“The story presents Tolkien’s imagined conception of what purgatory is like–a process of healing, sometimes painful but always oriented toward heaven–and, as he explains in his introductory note, the story also depicts the the process of artistic creativity, what he calls ‘sub-creation.’”6
Purgatory does not equate to universalism, but the doctrine of purgatory owes much of its development to Origen, one of its early developers.7
From the examples that I have given from Morgoth’s Ring, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Shaping of Middle-earth, and The Silmarillion, it is possible to extract echoes of patristic universalism from them; both individually, within their textual history, and as being informed by Tolkien’s letters as well as his other fiction such as “Leaf By Niggle.” However, each pericope was written separately and at a different point in the development of the legendarium. None fit together neatly–as Tolkien’s primary world theology and theology within Arda likewise do not. It takes textual criticism and selective hermeneutics to construct a patristic universalistic interpretation of Tolkien’s legendarium. Rather than reconcile the whole of Tolkien’s writings to reduce them to a singular and immutable interpretation, I want to argue for a hermeneutical method that take seriously the factual evidence available to us in Tolkien’s writings, his Catholic faith that informed those writings, and the subjective reality of the reader’s presence in their exegesis.
It is important to recognize the residue of Tolkien’s Catholicism throughout his writings, but in attempting to argue for the type of methodology I am putting forth, the words of Fr. Michael Halsall in his book Creation and Beauty in Tolkien’s Catholic Vision are helpful in putting this argument into context:
“Many commentators ascribe to Tolkien a false intention that he was promoting in, an ‘apologetic’ sense, a Christian gospel. Whilst [Tolkien’s] works are suffused with Christian themes and motifs, one can read them independent of any such intention, given that he denied such obvious interpretation of his works.”8
Halsall refutes the explicit use of Tolkien as a tool for apologetics, but this apologetic use of Tolkien can also be found implicitly within much theological criticism on Tolkien. It is this implicit theological reductionism that I position my methodology against.
Tom Emanuel proposes a hermeneutic of Tolkien that shares my pluralistic ends in his article “‘It is “About” Nothing But Itself’: Tolkienian Theology Beyond the Domination of the Author.” Where Emanuel constructs his hermeneutics from Queer Christian biblical theology and progressive Jewish Midrash to form an interpretive theory of “Tolkienian inspiration,” I want to connect Tolkien’s idea of freeing language from its hoard in On Fairy-stories with the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead’s notion of “expression” in language.
Both Tolkien and Whitehead express their understanding of the origins of language to be inaccessible. Regardless of the genesis of human language, Tolkien argues that humans have the ability to abstract language from the mysterious depths of etymology to construct new realities in cooperation with the rest of Creation as well as God. However, humans do not produce linguistic worlds ex nihilo, but in a “Cauldron of Story”–or history–that emerge and return to the Cauldron with new ingredients and recipes to continue the ongoing process of intellectual human innovation. This is Tolkien’s famous theory of sub-creation. And for Tolkien, the aim of sub-creation is for the sub-creator to recognize that they will “actually assist in the effoliation and multiple enrichment of creation” and “All tales may come true; and yet…redeemed” (OFS, 79).
The interplay between human and divine creativity is essential for Tolkien as well as Whitehead. In a collection of his lectures entitled Modes of Thought, Whitehead’s second lecture “Expression” reads logically identical to Tolkien’s understanding of language and its function in the entangled human construction of history and myth in On Fairy-stories. However, Whitehead theorizes how language emerges. He argues that humans experientially presuppose “an environment which, in its totality, we are unable to define.”9 Thus humans abstract reality through preferential differentiation, which then arises through linguistic expression.10 This preferential differentiation emerges from the immanence of the infinite that all Creation carries–what Christians may term the imago Dei–“But expression is founded on the finite occasion”11 conditioned by the relation of the expresser, that which is being expressed, and the environment that encompasses this occasion.
Although humans have the ability to abstract language to fit their communicative ends, both Tolkien and Whitehead argue that for language to achieve good as well as staying power, its speaker needs to be aware of their place in relation to their human and non-human neighbors while lovingly partnering with them in the continual beautification of their linguistic expression and therefore the world. Tolkien even capitalizes the word “Expression” in naming it a necessary attribute of Fantasy after saying, “The achievement of the expression, which gives (or seems to give) ‘the inner consistency of reality’, is…Art…and the final result, Sub-creation” (OFS, 59). The development and use of language also contains with it a potential for domination, which establishes itself in pure and unrelenting abstraction. Whitehead cautions us:
“We cannot congratulate ourselves too warmly on the fact that we are born among people who can talk about green in abstraction from springtime. But…we must remember the warning–Nothing too much.”12
In our self-congratulatory attitude towards the human ability to abstract through language, we have dominated and created stagnant pools that many of us call “truth” or “reality.” The remedy, for Tolkien, is for us to “open [our] hoard and let all the locked things fly away” (OFS, 68).
So, what does all this have to do with a patristic universalistic reading of Tolkien’s legendarium? Or the method of interpretation I am proposing? I want to answer these questions with a question that Tom Emanuel asks in his article I referenced above: “Why are we treating Tolkien like God?”13 Throughout the history of literary criticism, many theories have used the allegory of “God” for an author and vice versa. Tolkien himself uses this allegory in his own theorizing of authorship. Rather than taking issue with this move, I want to pick it up in the working out of my hermeneutic. Neither Tolkien the author nor the reader share existential supremacy. Similarly, for Whitehead, God as well as Creatures have a distinct, but necessarily intertwined and shared part in the meaning-making process.
All good and loving possibilities exist eternally in God’s nature while simultaneously actualizing and evolving as it integrates with the physical process of the world. If we take Whitehead’s understanding of God and the relational dynamics of God and the world as an allegory to how we can approach interpreting Tolkien, we can recognize that there is factual data from Tolkien’s life and work that has been made available to us. However, like the inaccessibility of the origins of language (assuming humans contain characteristics conditioned by the imago Dei) as well as the entirety of the nature of God, as history marches on, our understanding of them will never be complete. Whitehead puts it this way:
“What is done in the world is transformed into a reality in heaven, and the reality in heaven passes back into the world. By reason of this reciprocal relation, the love in the world passes into the love in heaven, and floods back again into the world. In this sense, God is the great companion…”14
And although Tolkien is not God, if we bring this particular allegory of God to understand Tolkien as author–as opposed to more classical theological allegories–Tolkien becomes not an outsider that imposes a reality upon ours, but journeys with us in our reading. In turn, our readings contribute to the ongoing reality of Tolkien’s being in the world.
As readings of Tolkien continue, old and new understandings of him and his work come together to inevitably form something new. To better achieve this reality for the fostering of Tolkien Studies, rather than begin with systems of interpretation, taking up the task of understanding the assemblage of realities and then constructing a system from that understanding is a more Tolkienian way of reading Tolkien in general. Because the perfecting of sub-creation does not end in this life, but is continually redeemed with God’s creativity, each perspective on different aspects pertaining to Tolkien’s life and works is like a new leaf that contributes to the novelty of the life of God, the world, and, perhaps, even Tolkien himself.
Ludlow, Morwenna. “Patristic Universalism” in Congdon, David W., editor. Varieties of Christian Universalism: Exploring Four Views. Baker Academic, 2024. 3-4.
See also Ordway, Holly. Tolkien’s Faith: A Spiritual Biography. Word on Fire Academic, 2023. 333-334.
Distefano, Matthew J. “Was J.R.R. Tolkien a Universalist?” Patheos.com, Patheos, 15 Apr. 2022. www.patheos.com/blogs/allsetfree/2022/04/was-j-r-r-tolkien-a-universalist/.
Olszański, Tadeusz Andrzej (1996) "Evil and the Evil One in Tolkien's Theology," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 21: No. 2, Article 44. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol21/iss2/44. 300.
Ludlow. 22.
Ordway. 254-255.
Hendzel, Matthew Scott. An Exploration of the Roman Catholic Doctrine of Purgatory in Light of Current Issues in Theodicy. 2019. University of Toronto. PhD Thesis. https://utoronto.scholaris.ca/items/32fa6393-8480-4b37-b454-505d1bcc3e64. 36.
Halsall, Michael John. Creation and Beauty in Tolkien’s Catholic Vision: A Study in the Influence of Neoplatonism in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Philosophy of Life as “Being and Gift”. Lutterworth Press, 2020. 152.
Whitehead, Alfred North. Modes of Thought. The Free Press, 1968. 10.
Whitehead. Modes of Thought. 22.
Whitehead. Modes of Thought. 20.
Whitehead. Modes of Thought. 38.
Emanuel, Tom. “‘It is ‘about’ nothing but itself’: Tolkienian Theology Beyond the Domination of the Author.” Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: vol. 42, no. 1, #143, 2023. 39.
Whitehead, Alfred North. Process and Reality. Corrected edition. The Free Press, 1978. 351.
Bibliography
Distefano, Matthew J. “Was J.R.R. Tolkien a Universalist?” Patheos.com, Patheos, 15 Apr. 2022. www.patheos.com/blogs/allsetfree/2022/04/was-j-r-r-tolkien-a-universalist/.
Emanuel, Tom. "'It is 'about' nothing but itself': Tolkienian Theology Beyond the Domination of the Author." Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: vol. 42, no. 1, #143, 2023.
Fornet Ponse, Thomas (2023) "Of houses and raiments – philosophical aspects of corporality in Arda," Journal of Tolkien Research: Vol. 16: Iss. 1, Article 8. Available at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol16/iss1/8.
Freeman, Austin M. “Critiquing Tolkien’s Theology” in Estes, Douglas, editor. Theology and Tolkien: Constructive Theology. Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2024.
—. Tolkien Dogmatics: Theology through Mythology with the Maker of Middle-Earth. Lexham Press, 2022.
Halsall, Michael John. Creation and Beauty in Tolkien’s Catholic Vision: A Study in the Influence of Neoplatonism in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Philosophy of Life as “Being and Gift.” Lutterworth Press, 2020.
Hendzel, Matthew Scott. An Exploration of the Roman Catholic Doctrine of Purgatory in Light of Current Issues in Theodicy. 2019. University of Toronto. PhD Thesis. https://utoronto.scholaris.ca/items/32fa6393-8480-4b37-b454-505d1bcc3e64.
Ludlow, Morwenna. “Patristic Universalism” in Congdon, David W., editor. Varieties of Christian Universalism: Exploring Four Views. Baker Academic, 2024.
McIntosh, Jonathan S. The Flame Imperishable: Tolkien, St. Thomas, and the Metaphysics of Faërie. Angelico Press, 2017.
Olszański, Tadeusz Andrzej (1996) "Evil and the Evil One in Tolkien's Theology," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 21: No. 2, Article 44. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol21/iss2/44.
Ordway, Holly. Tolkien’s Faith: A Spiritual Biography. Word on Fire Academic, 2023.
Tolkien, J. R. R. Morgoth’s Ring. Edited by Christopher Tolkien. HarperCollinsPublishers, 2015.
—. The Fellowship of the Ring. Ballantine Books, 1976.
—. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Edited by Humphrey Carpenter and Christopher Tolkien, Revised and expanded edition. First edition, William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2023.
—. The Nature of Middle-earth. Edited by Carl F. Hostetter. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021.
—. The Shaping of Middle-earth. Edited by Christopher Tolkien. Ballantine Books,1995.
—. The Silmarillion. Ballantine Books, 1984.
—. The Tolkien Reader. Ballantine Books, 1977.
—. Tolkien on Fairy-Stories. Edited by Verlyn Flieger and Douglas A. Anderson, Expanded edition, with commentary and notes, HarperCollinsPublishers, 2014.
Whitehead, Alfred North. Modes of Thought. The Free Press, 1968.
—. Process and Reality. Corrected edition. The Free Press, 1978.
Here for this!