Does Ilúvatar deserve to be worshipped?

[Walter]

Please expect my answer here in some two years from now, Ray....

 

[Úlairi]

Hmm, I missed a trick with this question, rather than Does Ilúvatar deserve to be worshipped? I should have asked: Does Ilúvatar exist? This is certainly not a religious question, simply asked out of observation. The fables of men refer to a voice, but nothing material or tangible. So I wonder now, does he exist or is he simply a fable of men and elves alike? Who contrived the story of Ilúvatar and what is the evidence to support his existence?

Walter, wonderful answer Then again, if he doesn't really exist he would neither deserve or ask to be worshipped.

Well, if you don't believe the Ainulindalë or the Valaquenta provide evidence of the existence of Ilúvatar (or his actual voice in The 'Tale of Adanel') then it's likely you'll have to think outside the box here.

I'll have the proverbial college try:

There are a few references in Letters about the lack of Eru's presence within Arda:

The Letters of JRR Tolkien - #211: To Rhona Beare

The One does not physically inhabit any part of Eä.

The Letters of JRR Tolkien - #181: To Michael Straight [drafts]

There is no 'embodiment' of the Creator anywhere in this story or mythology.

This obviously makes it difficult to prove or provide evidence in support of the existence of Eru.

If taken from a literary perspective, there would be the intrinsic necessity of a Creator to give authenticity to a mythology or Legendarium and as such a Creator would therefore be inevitable in this tale.

The Letters of JRR Tolkien - #200: From a letter to Major R. Bowen

Melkor, who ultimately became the inevitable Rebel and self-worshipper of mythologies that begin with a transcendent unique Creator.

I acknowledge the flaw per se in the use of extrinsic material but proof of a Creator's existence can be gleaned from the mind of the author of the mythology. It can also be derived from this concept that a Creator is an inexorable constituent of any mythology.

I find the most compelling argument for the existence of Eru to be through the events in which he himself becomes present and through these events he does, in the sense of Destiny and Fate, become present within Arda. Two of these events that have especial note is the Fate of the Ring and The Drowning of Númenor. Tolkien has this to say about the Fate of the Ring and Eru's involvement:

The Letters of JRR Tolkien - #192: From a letter to Amy Ronald

Frodo deserved all honour because he spent very drop of his power of will and body, and that was just sufficient to bring him to the destined point, and no further. The Other Power then took over: the Writer of the Story (by which I do not mean myself), 'that one ever-present Person who is never absent and never named'* ...

*Actually referred to as the One...

And I'm going to have to make a thread about this as the are many reasons why I consider PJ's Fate of the Ring to be better than Tolkien's eek as it portrays the self-destructive nature of evil instead of the Predestined nature of Arda.

The other, The Drowning of Númenor was Eru's direct intervention:

The Letters of JRR Tolkien - #211: To Rhona Beare

Sauron was first defeated by a 'miracle': a direct action of God the Creator [Eru], changing the fashion of the world, when appealed to by Manwë:...

And for the textual evidence:

The Silmarillion: Akallabêth - The Downfall of Númenor

Then Manwë upon the Mountain called upon Ilúvatar, and for that time the Valar laid down their government of Arda. But Ilúvatar showed forth his power, and he changed the fashion of the world; and a great chasm opened in the sea between Númenor and the Deathless Lands, and the waters flowed down into it, and the noise and smoke of the cataracts went up to heaven, and the world was shaken.

I personally find this enough to constitute the existence of Eru within Arda. There is another excerpt from Morgoth's Ring that I also find to be quite blatant evidence of Ilúvatar's existence:

The History of Middle-earth X: Morgoth's Ring - Athrabeth Finrod Ah Andreth: Appendix - 'The Converse of Manwë and Eru' and later conceptions of Elvish reincarnation

Manwë spoke to Eru, saying: 'Behold! an evil appears in Arda that we did not look for ...
Eru answered: 'Let the houseless be re-housed!'

But by playing Devil's Advocacy and the atheistic perspective one could use the convincing argument of Sauron's in his perversion of the Númenoreans to evil:

The Silmarillion: Akallabêth - The Downfall of Númenor

Then behind locked doors Sauron spoke to the King, and he lied, saying: 'It is he whose name is not now spoken; for the Valar have deceived you concerning him, putting forward the name of Eru, a phantom devised in the folly of their hearts, seeking to enchain Men in servitude to themselves. For they are the oracle of Eru, which speaks only what they will.

However even Tolkien acknowledges this was a lie, and the direct intervention of Eru is punishment for the foolishness in the Númenoreans conversion to the Dark. Interestingly Tolkien also discusses Sauron's acknowledgement of Eru in Myths Transformed:

The History of Middle-earth X: Morgoth's Ring - Myths Transformed: VII - Notes on motives in the Silmarillion: (i)

Sauron, could not, of course, be a 'sincere' atheist. Though one of the minor spirits created before the world, he knew Eru, according to his measure.

I would likely conclude that is was through Eru's intervention in Eä is where his existence may be 'found'. As for worship of Eru and whether he deserved it. The Firstborn did not consider that Eru deserved it as they had no organized religion; but Tolkien still describes Men and Elves as monotheists in Letters.

Cheers,

Úlairi.

 

[Illuin]

Originally posted by Ancalagon
The fables of men refer to a voice, but nothing material or tangible
Who contrived the story of Ilúvatar and what is the evidence to support his existence?

I would say that Elrond and Arwen qualify as "material or tangible" evidence. Elrond and Arwen were living testaments of Half-Elven that were given the (Divine) choice of Immortality or Mortality (unless one is of the 'conspiracy theory' type that believes Elrond and Arwen were perpetuating an old wives tale just for the fun of it).

As Tolkien states; Ilúvatar alone had the power and authority to confer this choice:

Letter 153 - To Peter Hastings

As for 'whose authority decides these things?' [the 'choice' of the Half-Elven]. Immortality and Mortality being the special gifts of God to the Eruhíni (in whose conception and creation the Valar had no part at all) it must be assumed that no alteration of their fundamental kind could be effected by the Valar even in one case: the cases of Lúthien (and Túor) and the position of their descendants was a direct act of God. The entering into Men of the Elven-strain is indeed represented as part of a Divine Plan for the ennoblement of the Human Race, from the beginning destined to replace the Elves.

 

[Úlairi]

I would say that Elrond and Arwen qualify as "material or tangible" evidence. Elrond and Arwen were living testaments of Half-Elven that were given the (Divine) choice of Immortality or Mortality (unless one is of the 'conspiracy theory' type that believes Elrond and Arwen were perpetuating an old wives tale just for the fun of it).

As Tolkien states; Ilúvatar alone had the power and authority to confer this choice:

The Statute of Finwë and Míriel, The Divine Choice of the Half-elven, The Akallabêth and The Fate of the Ring... I say tomàto; you say tomäto.

Cheers,

Úlairi.