The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum - View Single Post - "Ainulindalë: Tolkien, St. Thomas and the Metaphysics of the Music" Jonathan McIntosh

Faramir Jones · 04-08-2010, 04:10 PM

Like Bêthberry, I found this article 'fascinating', in terms of its attack on the 'orthodoxy' of tending to read 'his [Tolkien's] creation-drama and the Music of the Ainur in particular in terms of the emanationist logic of Neoplatonic philosophy', therefore 'later stages of the creation-process and world-history are seen as metaphysically inferior to, and thus a "tragic" falling away from, the supposedly more authentic and pure reality represented by the primeval Music'. (p. 53)

Against this, the author posits the metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas, claiming that Tolkien was more likely to be influenced by this, concluding:

The pattern of the Ainulindalë, in conclusion, is a movement from Music to Vision to Reality, from intelligible essence or abstract form, to a story, to an existing, mind-independent reality, a motion that is metaphisically speaking not a tragedy, but a eucatastrophe, not a Fall but a Fulfillment. Through his creation-myth Tolkien thus portrays the Thomistic insight into the real existence or being of things as a surpassing and gratuitous gift, anticipated in but never necessitated by their forms or essences alone, helped for in the promising and received with joy in the giving, a gift freely gived by a good, all-powerful, personal God who himself must transend all conceptuality because he is Being itself. (p. 70)

While I am familiar with the concept of the eucatastrophe due to reading On Fairy Stories, I certainly don't know enough about Aquinas's thought to reach a proper judgement on whether the author made a fair use of it to arrive at his conclusion.

What I will say is that the conclusion, particularly the talk about God transcending all conceptuality because 'he is Being itself', put me in mind of a passage from Dante's The Divine Comedy. In the part Paradise, the poet is journeying through the circling spheres towards God, and comes to Jupiter, where he encounters the souls of just monarchs, who form an eagle which speaks to him. Among the things it says is that God's will, because it is just, cannot depart from Justice; so man cannot ask if God's judgements are just, but only if a judgement conforms with God's will. If it does, it is just.

O minds of earth! O clods! it ne'er could be
That Primal Will, good in Itself, should quit
Its very Self, of Good the A per se.
Right's right so far as that with That doth fit;

Paradise, Canto XIX, lines 85-88.

04-08-2010, 04:10 PM	#3
Faramir Jones Ghost Prince of Cardolan Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Lonely Isle Posts: 706	It made me think of Dante Like Bêthberry, I found this article 'fascinating', in terms of its attack on the 'orthodoxy' of tending to read 'his [Tolkien's] creation-drama and the Music of the Ainur in particular in terms of the emanationist logic of Neoplatonic philosophy', therefore 'later stages of the creation-process and world-history are seen as metaphysically inferior to, and thus a "tragic" falling away from, the supposedly more authentic and pure reality represented by the primeval Music'. (p. 53) Against this, the author posits the metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas, claiming that Tolkien was more likely to be influenced by this, concluding: The pattern of the Ainulindalë, in conclusion, is a movement from Music to Vision to Reality, from intelligible essence or abstract form, to a story, to an existing, mind-independent reality, a motion that is metaphisically speaking not a tragedy, but a eucatastrophe, not a Fall but a Fulfillment. Through his creation-myth Tolkien thus portrays the Thomistic insight into the real existence or being of things as a surpassing and gratuitous gift, anticipated in but never necessitated by their forms or essences alone, helped for in the promising and received with joy in the giving, a gift freely gived by a good, all-powerful, personal God who himself must transend all conceptuality because he is Being itself. (p. 70) While I am familiar with the concept of the eucatastrophe due to reading On Fairy Stories, I certainly don't know enough about Aquinas's thought to reach a proper judgement on whether the author made a fair use of it to arrive at his conclusion. What I will say is that the conclusion, particularly the talk about God transcending all conceptuality because 'he is Being itself', put me in mind of a passage from Dante's The Divine Comedy. In the part Paradise, the poet is journeying through the circling spheres towards God, and comes to Jupiter, where he encounters the souls of just monarchs, who form an eagle which speaks to him. Among the things it says is that God's will, because it is just, cannot depart from Justice; so man cannot ask if God's judgements are just, but only if a judgement conforms with God's will. If it does, it is just. O minds of earth! O clods! it ne'er could be That Primal Will, good in Itself, should quit Its very Self, of Good the A per se. Right's right so far as that with That doth fit; Paradise, Canto XIX, lines 85-88.