July 8, 2002

Re: Religion and Tolkien's Writing
Abigail

I don't know that Tolkien, a Catholic, would have said that faith was unnecessary in his world. We are to assume that everyone in Middle Earth knows there's a god, but since Eru/Iluvatar is never referenced directly in the LOTR or Hobbit (that I remember), it's a possibility that some people don't. Faith is more believing in the goodness of the power you can't see, and having to go on the evidence you can see of things working out. (See Gandalf's speech to Frodo, "You also were meant to have it, and that is an encouraging thought.") They had to believe they were doing things for a reason.

Tolkien has said that he didn't want to have outright religion in his work so that it wouldn't resemble any current religion, but rather, people would sense the existence of Truth through it. Heaven and hell don't seem to exist for the Elves because they're bound to Middle Earth, unlike Men. The end of the trilogy is salvation through unlooked-for means -- a picture of grace, as I've heard it compared.