[davem]

I don't know how relevant it is, but there is a poem by GB Smith, on of the TCBS, an elegy for Rob Gilson. Smith didn't long outlive Gilson:

As John Garth says the 'piece declares a stark view of divine providence: Gilson's death is 'a sacrifice of blood outpoured' to a God whose purposes are utterly inscrutable & who 'only canst be glorified / by man's own passion & the supreme pain'. (from Tolkien & the Great War)

Of course, we can't say that Tolkien saw God in this way, but he did share the views & values of his friends.

But does this description of God bear any relation to Eru? Are Eru's purposes 'utterly inscrutable'? Well, The Legendarium is not really clear on Eru's motives - why create anything at all - boredom? Because its His nature as a creator to create? All we are presented with is Eru the creator.

And is Eru a God who 'canst only be glorified by man's & (Elves'?) passion & supreme pain'?

In other words, is it all simply about the glorification of Eru? And if so, is that enough justification for all the suffering?

Perhaps what Smith is doing is attempting to find a reason for the horror of the Somme & his own grief. A gentle, loving God, is difficult to reconcile with the horrors his generation witnessed. Was he attempting to redefine God, rather than lose Him altogether?

Has Tolkien taken this idea of God over into Middle Earth?

Probably not so simple as that. Garth comments on Ainulindale:

'Elevated subject & style should not obscure the tale's pertinence to the terrible times Tolkien had known. It is nothing less than an attempt to justify God's creation of an imperfect world filled with suffering, grief & loss. The primal rebel Melko covets Illuvatar's creativity where the Satan of Milton's Paradise Lost coveted God's authority, a distinction reflecting Tolkien's aestheticist anti-industrialism & Milton's anti-monarchism. Melko enters the void to search for the Secret Fire, yet having failed to findd it he nevertheless introduces his own discordant music, brash but marked by 'unity & a system of its own'. But in this collaborative Genesis, he distorts Creation itself, as Illuvatar reveals: 'Through him has pain & misery been made in the clash of overwhelming musics; & with confusion of sound have cruelty, & ravening, & darkness, loathly mire & all putrescence of thought or thing, foul mists & violent flame, cold without mercy, been born, & death without hope.' These ills (universal, though strikingly evocative of the Somme) do not arise exclusively from Melko's repetitive music; rather , they spring from its clash with Illuvatar's themes.

In Tolkien's view, creative decadence & spiritual schism were inextricably linked. During the TCBS crisis of 1914, he had told Wiseman: 'It is the tragedy of modern life that no-one knows upon what the universe is built to the mind of the man next to himn on the tram: it is this that makes it so tiring, so distracting; that produces the bewilderment, lack of beauty & design; its ugliness; its atmosphere antagonistic to supreme excellence.' In 1917 he had again bemoaned the decay in 'beauty in all men's works & fabrications for more than two centuries', & located its cause & symptom in the 'clash of backgrounds' that had opened up since the Middle Ages.

'The Music of the Ainur' portrayed such schism on a universal scale, but moved beyond complaint to reach a consolatory view. Illuvatar insists that the cosmogonic discords will ultimately make 'the Theme more worth hearing, Life more worth the living, & gthe world so much more the wonderful & marvellous'. As if to shed some light on this rather bald assertion, he cites the beauty of ice & snow, produced from water (Ulmo's work) by intemperate cold (Melko's). So much for the natural wonders & marvels; but how do the discords improve the experience of life for the individual facing 'cold without mercy ... & death without hope'? This is left as a riddle for the ensuing stories of good & evil to unravel'.

I suppose that Tolkien is saying we can't judge the world from within it, that only an 'eternal' perspective can make sense of the world. For those who believe this world is all there is, then it will seem that evil, pain & suffering is the norm, & if there is a creator, & we judge Him only by events in this world, He will probably seem cruel & possibly sadistic, but if we make our judgement based on a transcendent view, then our judgement will inevitably be different.

Or to put it another way, when we put down LotR, or even the Sil, what impression are we left with? Is our overwhelming sense that of Eru's sadism? Isn't it rather our wonder at the beauty, heroism, sacrifice & love that we've seen enacted there?

Tolkien seems to be trying to tell us that that will be our impression when we (if we believe that sort of thing) look back on life here, 'from beyond the circles of the world'.