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Old 01-20-2010, 01:00 PM   #7
Legate of Amon Lanc
A Voice That Gainsayeth
 
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Tolkien

Once again one has to ask, if you ask "Why do you think it is?" are you asking "inside" or "outside"? I.e. why is it so in the terms of Middle-Earth (how did it came to be in the world as a self-sufficient world existing on its own), or why did Tolkien not write it differently?

For the second one, I think there are many and easy sources, I think people could quote some letters or whatever where he explained that he did not want to go into any religious stuff. And he really did not, at least in the published works (there has been a few slightly more religious things in the earlier drafts etc).

But for the first one, I think it is partially given by the nature of the people, which stems from the abovementioned author's intention. We could simply say that the people of Middle-Earth do not have any basic "religious instinct" in themselves (in which, once again, Tolkien expresses the sort of ideal world for a Christian, where there is no inclination to make any gods for oneself and thus nothing to corrupt the eventual relation of anybody to the real god, resp. gods - but of course, so that it is not that simple, we have Morgoth, who is a real god and he turns to be the usurper of all the divinity for himself). But there seems not to be any wish to seek holy places or whatever, or even contact with the god/s. The former logically stems from the latter and there it is where I think we could stop for a while, as that is at least for me a quite interesting part of the cosmology - or respectively, theology - of Tolkien's universe.

As Tolkien wanted to avoid (or did not dare to write about) the subjects of religion and religiosity in his world, he also avoided the contact between the creation and its creator as much as possible. From the "outside" point of view, we can say that given the lack of religiosity of people in Middle-Earth, Eru was somewhat "condemned" to be a passive, or in the best case unpercievable god (actually, I would maybe side with the latter, as if one thinks about it, there are all these references to "something else at work" here and there, but again, never anything explicit). Simply, since Tolkien did not write about for example Sam praying to have enough strength to carry the Ring across Cirith Ungol (now that you really imagine it, it seems really strange, doesn't it?), we cannot say "okay, now it was the moment when Eru helped him to avoid being given out to Sauron". There are no explicit interventions from Eru, although a few actions are ascribed to him, sort of "indirectly" (Númenor, Istari).

There is a bit of better chance to see something on the lower level, that is, on the level of Valar. But even then, Valar are not the same as, for example, ancient Greek gods. Valar are far more similar to "angels" or something like that (even Tolkien himself translated Vala as "angelic power" and tried to avoid the term "gods" a lot, as far as I know). They are perhaps best called indeed as "the Powers", as they are called, "the government of Arda", indeed Stewards in the most Tolkien-ish sense. And most importantly, they are the "gods" of the Elves. Somehow, the relation of Men to Valar is very, very distant (with a few exceptions like that Mumak cry quoted above - by a Númenorean nonetheless, that is, somebody quite close to the West - and except for another few very unusual things like the absolutely unique mention of Oromë as being known by the Rohirrim as "Béma" - most intriguing, because it is most unusual). For the Elves, the Valar are ALMOST filling the role of gods as we usually understand the term - divine beings to whom humans (or other races) can relate. The Elves have been calling to Elbereth (prayer! I am not aware of much other forms of prayer existing in M-E), the Elves have traveled West to speak to their gods - as Valar are the ones in whose realm the Elves shall eventually dwell. But not Men - and here lies also the explanation, in my opinion - Men's fate lies elsewhere, and thus also any worship of Valar from their part is questionable. Valar found the Elves, led them West, the Elves have been in their realm etc. - but with Men, nothing like that has happened.

Well, one can already see that there could be several pages written about that - I have not yet mentioned Dwarves and there is a lot which could be said about them, but for the most important, obviously it was a bit similar as with Elves and Valar - only for the Dwarves, it was just one Vala who was important. In any case, as we can see, there was little space for Eru to actually "use" and most of all, he did not seem to WANT to "use" it. There was never any manifestation of Eru to the Elves - seemingly it was enough that they have been under the "Stewardship" of Valar. Eru, from various hints, seemed to be the most concerned with Men themselves, yet he was not actively approaching them as far as we know. Using once again edge-of-the-canon-info logic and Tolkien's personal belief, maybe the contact of Eru - the One God - with Men was supposed to wait for some later Age, past Third and Fourth age, to the time of certain Abraham, to whom he would suddenly speak - and later to Moses and others. That would certainly be an explanation adequate to Tolkien's presentation of Middle-Earth as he gives it to us (as M-E being indeed "our own" world in some "ancient age, when the sea and the lands were different") and if we accept it in the prism of Tolkien's own view of what "our world" means in relation to his personal faith.

If that is how we look at it, it eases the answer to the question. But in any case, the answer would be likely so as I said: the people of M-E have no real "religious instinct" in them, i.e. no need to perform any religious rituals or seek holy places or times. Eru is for most part only a Creator and does not act, or even speak or in any way wish to establish a communion with his creation visibly (yet(?)). Valar are governors and are something like a divinity to relate oneself to, but mainly for the Elves (resp. Dwarves); with the coming of the era of Men, they also become increasingly passive - the Secondborn are no longer "their" stuff. The strongest manifestation of any religiosity whatsoever is indeed the description of the Númenoreans' Meneltarman ritual (which in the light of the end of the former paraghraph becomes most intriguing, as it is, all right, a foreshadowing of the upcoming contact of Men with their God, but then the question arises where did this sudden wish to relate to Eru come from, as there has been no precedent in the history of M-E at least as portrayed in the Silmarillion, the Elves always related to Valar, so why now this sudden "innovation"? This would certainly be an interesting subject to explore, but alas, at least I am not aware that any answers would be available).

EDIT: x-ed with S-P-M (skip-Pitch-Might ) And nice to see many thoughts that have been said on this thread sort of supply one another, that's what we call a 'Downish collective research
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