tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5746173806126403959.post6299218814573707916..comments2023-11-07T06:20:12.181-08:00Comments on Tolkien: Medieval and Modern: Free will in LOTR: The Calvinism of Gandalf"Tolkien: Medieval and Modern"http://www.blogger.com/profile/04348913969813157482noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5746173806126403959.post-8810338043205328672014-06-03T13:52:08.942-07:002014-06-03T13:52:08.942-07:00The interrelated concepts of free will and fate (o...The interrelated concepts of free will and fate (or doom, in J.R.R. Tolkien’s words) are central to many Western (and perhaps Eastern) works. The best example of this is probably Oedipus Rex. Was Oedipus truly fated to murder his father and sleep with his mother? Or did the actions of his father in leaving him to die of exposure lead to the fulfilment of the prophecy? From one perspective, Oedipus Rex is a story of the inescapability of Fate; but from another, it is an examination of unforeseen ramifications. To bring this back to Tolkien, Frodo may or may not have been fated to bear the Ring. However, Bilbo’s choices, from using the Ring, to sparing Gollum, to leaving the Shire, placed the burden on Frodo’s shoulders. Then Frodo assumes the doom of the Ring. However, the choices he makes along his journey lead to the events in Mt. Doom. But they don’t necessarily shape the events in Mt. Doom because said events were fated to occur in such and such a manner, rather they shape the events because that’s what all actions do. Actions have consequences, seen and unseen. The mercy shown to Gollum and the subsequent betrayal at the Forbidden Pool both lead to Gollum’s attack of Frodo and the destruction of the Ring. Does that mean that Frodo was fated to break before the Ring and Gollum fated to save him? I don’t know, and since there is no way to alter The Lord of the Rings, it is impossible to know if Frodo’s and Gollum’s fates were actually fated. In my opinion, the events in Mt. Doom were not the works of fate, but the products of action between two related characters.<br /><br />- Peter Alexieff"Tolkien: Medieval and Modern"https://www.blogger.com/profile/04348913969813157482noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5746173806126403959.post-45184252905006213552014-05-26T20:51:50.920-07:002014-05-26T20:51:50.920-07:00I think this is a really interesting and rich topi...I think this is a really interesting and rich topic of inquiry. I think that largely stems from what everyone has already identified as the extreme difficulty of answering this question. That being said I think that Tolkien would have viewed this with a far more catholic approach rather than Calvinist. I largely say this because I think that free will is very important to the story which is unfolding in Lord of The Rings. If everything is already predestined so that good triumphs over evil, then there is no real peril in the struggle which unfolds. The crisis of the moment is only created because defeat is a possibility. I think Tolkien tries to emphasis the role of free will through Bilbo’s decision to spare Gollum. Bilbo decides to let Gollum live and this is what ultimately allows the ring to be destroy, it is Bilbo’s mercy which decides the fate of the ring. But what is important here is that Bilbo had a choice, he didn’t have to spare Gollum. I don’t think this should take away from the idea of an overarching narrative which is driving the story insofar as the right combination of right choices will result in a good outcome. Even free will narratives have an element of predestination, but the ultimate outcome for the individual is uncertain and is contingent on the choices they make. <br /><br />-Blake AlexAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01814290248935470378noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5746173806126403959.post-88315713979678556362014-05-18T12:58:44.815-07:002014-05-18T12:58:44.815-07:00Oops. La Pesanteur. My bad.Oops. <b><i>La Pesanteur</i></b>. My bad.Bill the Heliotropehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02341298872838607585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5746173806126403959.post-67380623520765286812014-05-18T12:57:07.894-07:002014-05-18T12:57:07.894-07:00Daniel (for whom I thank for his undeservedly kind...Daniel (for whom I thank for his undeservedly kind words) makes some very good points here. With respect to his last paragraph, Tolkien may have had the same insight as the French mystic, Simone Weil, who wrote (at about the exact same time):<br /><br /><b>Le mal imaginaire est romantique, varié, le mal réel morne, monotone, désertique, ennuyeux. Le bien imaginaire est ennuyeux ; le bien réel est toujours nouveau, merveilleux, enivrant.</b> <i>Le Pensateur et la Grâce</i> (1947), 83.<br /><br />which is to say:<br /><br /><b>Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating</b>. <i>Gravity & Grace</i> (1952), 120.Bill the Heliotropehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02341298872838607585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5746173806126403959.post-71582754802217802342014-05-15T02:37:07.623-07:002014-05-15T02:37:07.623-07:00So I read this, decided I wanted to respond to it,...So I read this, decided I wanted to respond to it, and then saw Bill's phenomenal comment above which said most of what I wanted to say, but better. Despite this, I will press on with my (significantly inferior) thoughts.<br /><br />Ahem. Anyway.<br /><br />I think the issue you're discussing is a very real one with no easy answers either in Middle-Earth or Regular Earth. That being said, the way that I had been reconciling free will and destiny (in Middle-Earth - I'll get back to you when I figure it out for Regular Earth, or maybe just send you a copy of the award-winning book I'll write when I do) is by returning to the Music of the Ainur. Eru directed the music, and all of it stemmed from Him and was aimed towards His glory, but He didn't play it, or rather He didn't play all of it. Rather, He just presented the themes, allowing the Ainur to play music in ways that fulfilled those themes. There were lots of different ways they could do this, and Melkor certainly tried his best to rebel, but even then his discord only served to highlight the greater beauty of Eru's theme.<br /><br />Similarly, I imagine Frodo as a melody woven into Eru's theme (this would also be a fantastic time to note that I know nothing about music, so if that's not a thing that melodies do then I'm very sorry). I'm not sure how much Eru, as opposed to the Abrahamic and particularly the Christian God, is concerned with the individual, but what I figured was that Eru's theme meant only that someone like Frodo would get the Ring, that eventually Sauron would fall, that eventually the forces of good would triumph. This is not, of course, to remove value from Frodo's actions by saying that just anyone could do it - it matters that he did it, and the particular way in which he did it shaped his melody into a unique praise of Iluvatar, a fraction of a psalm. Once he has started his work, however, he must follow through, much as you can't stop a song halfway. Frodo's work champions free will, making the music it produces so much more beautiful.<br /><br />By way of comparison, the forces of evil in Middle-Earth are far more deterministic than those of good, and in a significantly less fulfilling fashion. If we'll recall, the music of Melkor and his ilk was not only discordant - it was repetitive, composed only of a few notes repeated over and over. Not only that, but it failed to accomplish its intended goal, instead performing the same role as all other music by glorifying Iluvatar. Evil is not only, well, evil, it's severely limited, and for all its vaunted "independence" cannot play a single note that does not, in its own way, glorify Eru. Eru, through His themes, determines what happens, but His Children, through their freedom of will, determine how it happens.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07346160281580598744noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5746173806126403959.post-2230818765174977962014-05-14T09:17:35.266-07:002014-05-14T09:17:35.266-07:00S.B.,
I think you're on to something here, bu...S.B.,<br /><br />I think you're on to something here, but your terminology gets a little inaccurate. I think predestination and fate (or “doom” as Tolkien the Anglo-Saxonist prefers) are closely entwined. Given the omnipotence and omniscience of Eru (like the Judeo-Christian God), some form of predestination has to exist, right? Even before Creation, Eru is telling Melkor, “Discord all you like, man, it’ll make the song better in the end.” And he does so with absolute certainty. Because he knows the course of creation before it happens, presumably.<br /><br />This Tolkien connects with the Music of Ilúvatar, right? Essentially, it's the score of all history, to which the universe is fated to conform—except Men who are given an unusual dispensation. That doesn't mean that their ends are not known to Eru, merely that they can actually work at odds with (or simply outside) his plan. (Hold on while I take some aspirin trying to sort out what all this means.)<br /><br />Gandalf's discussion of Frodo's being “chosen,” I think, admits two possibilities, one the far more likely, as Gandalf's a Maia (i.e., a messenger, ἄγγελος, of Ilúvatar), is that he’s speaking of Frodo’s having a Providential role. That somehow the Ring's coming to him is a happenstance ordained by benevolent fate. The other possibility, which I don’t see as likely, is that he’s speaking of the Ring’s own choice (since it has its own will, since we’re told it abandons both Isildur and Gollum of its own accord).<br /><br />So I think we can speak of a “doom” here in the sense that the results of free choices seem to play out in ways which bespeak a Providence—though how much this involves action on the part of Eru and how much is accord with the strains of the Music which have been playing before Time is impossible to say. On why Eru seems to act at certain times and not others takes us into theodicy (Erudicy?) which we have nowhere near enough basis to speak (other than by analogy to Judeo-Christian principles).<br /><br />Calvin is a slightly different kettle of (not so sweet, juicy) fish, with his doctrine of double predestination, foreordaining the damnation and salvation of every individual. I don’t think this applies to Middle Earth, in which choices are so freighted and Gandalf the angel keeps insisting on the theological virtue of hope, rather than resignation.<br /><br />Tolkien, as a Catholic lover of the north, was probably trying to synthesize the Nordic idea of “doom” and willful resistance even to a fated defeat and the Christian theology of hope and predestination—but a predestination along Catholic lines, which the 1992 Catechism discusses as:<br /><br /><i> To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy. When therefore he establishes his eternal plan of "predestination," he includes in it each person's free response to his grace: "In this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place." [Acts 4:27–28; cf. Ps 2:1–2] For the sake of accomplishing his plan of salvation, God permitted the acts that flowed from their blindness. [cf. Mt 26:54; Jn 18:36; 19:11; Acts 3:17–18]</i>, CCC 600.<br /><br />and<br /><br /><i> God predestines no one to go to hell; for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end. In the Eucharistic liturgy and in the daily prayers of her faithful, the Church implores the mercy of God, who does not want "any to perish, but all to come to repentance...".</i>, CCC 1037.<br /><br />I'm not sure this wizard completely gets what he's after, but for my money, you're very right to locate it, and free will, at the very center of the moral concerns Tolkien is exploring.Bill the Heliotropehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02341298872838607585noreply@blogger.com