Eru's role

[Arnor spirit]

Thanks for your greetings

Thorondor, it looks like that your second quote (Letter No. 156) shots my argument down in flames. IMHO I see the first one to be rather ambivalent in the context of this discussion as we don't know what are usual feelings of deceased Maia.

And nevertheless my point was based on my assumption what happens to deceased Maiars within the Ea. For example after his death caused by Wormtongue Saruman's spirit tries to leave for Valinor but is refused and scattered via "cold wind from the west". So I expected that Gandalf's spirit would do the same.

And of course pardon my rather poor English ...

 

[Walter]

Gandalf's death and "resurrection" represents IMO some sort of an afterthought of Tolkien, in the drafts Gandalf doesn't die and it is not entirely clear when Tolkien changed his mind in that issue.

Tolkien was aware that this is a 'defect' in the story, it was called cheating by critics, and Tolkien is at great pains to explain it (again to Father Robert Murray, the Jesuit) in his letter #156 (of which Thorondor quoted a small part in his previous post).

 

[Barliman Butterbur]

Walter, since you don't accept PMs and emails, could you please PM me? There's something I want to share with you that I've already shared with the rest of the TTF cognoscenti...

Barley

 

[Walter]

Barley you can find me here...

 

[Thorondor_]

Gandalf's death and "resurrection" represents IMO some sort of an afterthought of Tolkien, in the drafts Gandalf doesn't die and it is not entirely clear when Tolkien changed his mind in that issue

I think it is debatable; in "The white rider", HoME 7: "Gandalf does not say, as in TT, 'Naked I was sent back - for a brief time, until my task is done', but simply 'Naked I returned, and naked I lay upon the mountain-top".

Tolkien was aware that this is a 'defect' in the story, it was called cheating by critics, and Tolkien is at great pains to explain it (again to Father Robert Murray, the Jesuit) in his letter #156 (of which Thorondor quoted a small part in his previous post).

It's not a "random" refference though; in the same letter, he says: "he was handing over to the Authority that ordained the Rules, and giving up personal hope of success". Later on, in Letter#181, he makes even cleare his reasons:

But the situation became so much the worse by the fall of Saruman, that the 'good' were obliged to greater effort and sacrifice. Thus Gandalf faced and suffered death; and came back or was sent back, as he says, with enhanced power. But though one may be in this reminded of the Gospels, it is not really the same thing at all. The Incarnation of God is an infinitely greater thing than anything I would dare to write. Here I am only concerned with Death as part of the nature, physical and spiritual, of Man, and with Hope without guarantees.

 

[Walter]

I was thinking of this part:

I think the way in which Gandalf's return is presented is a defect, and one other critic, as much under the spell as yourself, curiously used the same expression: 'cheating'. That is partly due to the ever-present compulsions of narrative technique. He must return at that point, and such explanations of his survival as are explicitly set out must be given there – but the narrative is urgent, and must not be held up for elaborate discussions involving the whole 'mythological' setting. It is a little impeded even so, though I have severely cut G's account of himself. I might perhaps have made more clear the later remarks in Vol. II (and Vol. III) which refer to or are made by Gandalf, but I have purposely kept all allusions to the highest matters down to mere hints, perceptible only by the most attentive, or kept them under unexplained symbolic forms. So God and the 'angelic' gods, the Lords or Powers of the West, only peep through in such places as Gandalf's conversation with Frodo: 'behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker's' ; or in Faramir's Númenórean grace at dinner.
Gandalf really 'died', and was changed: for that seems to me the only real cheating, to represent anything that can be called 'death' as making no difference. 'I am G. the White, who has returned from death'. Probably he should rather have said to Wormtongue: 'I have not passed through death (not 'fire and flood') to bandy crooked words with a serving-man'. And so on. I might say much more, but it would only be in (perhaps tedious) elucidation of the 'mythological' ideas in my mind; it would not, I fear, get rid of the fact that the return of G. is as presented in this book a 'defect', and one I was aware of, and probably did not work hard enough to mend

Letters #156

 

[Helcaraxë]

I wouldn't say that Eru is Tolkien's "version" of God any more than I would say the Misty Mountains are his version of the Alps. Tolkien intended his mythology to be set in a mythical time, not a mythical place; e.g., Earth. But Tolkien has made "our world" nonetheless his own. Tolkien never intended his works to be allegorical; he never intended Eru to be "God." For Tolkien, Eru was a necessary part of existence, and though God plays a similar role for Tolkien, a Catholic, in real life, this in no way means that Eru "represents" or "is" God. Tolkien's references to his work being "christian and catholic" are taken out of context; Tolkien was inspired by his ideas about the world, which correspond with his religious beliefs, but he was equally (I would argue more) inspired by the various mythologies that he was so intrigued by.

If you look at Eru's nature, you will see things very different from the Christian deity. These have been discussed earlier in this thread, and I will not repeat them. Suffice to say that Eru was influenced, like the mythology in its entirety, by many factors, only one of them being his religious beliefs. You will see many things about Eru that are distinctly Un-Christian.

Tolkien tried hard not to make a "Christian" mythology, as someone else pointed out. The fact that he used, in the mythology, facts that he believed were fundamentally true about the world does not imply either a parallel, a representation, and certainly not an allegorical relationship with those facts.

 

[Arvedui]

Although Tolkien clearly states that he dislikes "allegory," he does allow for his works to have "applicability."
So by adding that to the fact that he was a devout Catholic, I would not dismiss the idea that Eru might in many ways resemble God.

 

[Helcaraxë]

Oh, of course! I never said that Eru doesn't resemble God. But I think it is a result of Tolkien trying to make his world similar to ours, only more wondrous and in an imaginary time. However, Tolkien had many influences, only one of them being his religion. Though J.R.R. often referred to Eru as "God" in his letters, I think this can be easily misinterpreted. Tolkien did not mean Eru to be the God that led the Jews out of Egypt, father of Jesus Christ, etc. Rather, in the mythology, he sees Eru as the God that (he believed) is the necessary consequence of existence, and a necessary part of his imagined world. Eru is no more the Christian God in Tolkien's works than the mountains are Christian mountains, or the sky a Christian sky.

 

[Arvedui]

Oh, of course! I never said that Eru doesn't resemble God. But I think it is a result of Tolkien trying to make his world similar to ours, only more wondrous and in an imaginary time. However, Tolkien had many influences, only one of them being his religion. Though J.R.R. often referred to Eru as "God" in his letters, I think this can be easily misinterpreted. Tolkien did not mean Eru to be the God that led the Jews out of Egypt, father of Jesus Christ, etc. Rather, in the mythology, he sees Eru as the God that (he believed) is the necessary consequence of existence, and a necessary part of his imagined world. Eru is no more the Christian God in Tolkien's works than the mountains are Christian mountains, or the sky a Christian sky.

I think that you are quite right! Eru is THE God, not a specific God according to some religion.