Review of Tolkien Dogmatics
(avg. read time: 10–20 mins.)
Back in 2022, a book was published that appears to be in line with the typical focus of Tolkien material on this site, but I have only now gotten around to reading and reviewing it. That book is:
Austin M. Freeman, Tolkien Dogmatics: Theology Through Mythology with the Maker of Middle-earth (Bellingham, WA: Lexham, 2022).
This is a volume of systematic theology aiming to present in systematic form Tolkien’s theology, which he himself never systematized. Unlike the people Freeman responds to in his prolegomena, I do not have a problem with this project in principle, but I do appreciate that he has taken the time to address potential concerns or objections to his project. One of my first indications that his head was in the right place was in his interactions with Claudio Testi’s incisive and insightful article on whether Tolkien’s fictional work is “Christian” or “pagan.” I also appreciate how the hermeneutical principles undergirding his approach are influenced by Kevin Vanhoozer’s work. You could certainly do a lot worse than that. I also appreciate how he guides the reader through what exactly he is most concerned with, as he says his focus is less on the latent theology of Tolkien’s fiction than with Tolkien’s theology as a whole as presented in nonfiction (primarily) and fiction (secondarily; 10, 15–16).
Naturally, even accounting for the reformatting that such a systematic theology brings, one cannot hope to form a properly comprehensive systematic theology out of Tolkien’s work in the way that one can from the works of many professional theologians. There are some subjects we simply have no record of Tolkien writing or speaking about, or what we do have in these regards is sparse. And Freeman acknowledges this. But what he can find in Tolkien’s record is presented in the following outline: God – revelation – creation – humanity – angels – the Fall – evil and sin – Satan and demons – Christ and salvation – the Church – the Christian life – last things.
Chapter 1 on God is mostly a good guide on how Tolkien speaks of God in his letters, his famous lecture/essay “On Fairy-Stories,” and various parts of The History of Middle-earth (especially Morgoth’s Ring) among others. To me, the highlight of this chapter is what he writes concerning the Holy Spirit, particularly on whether the Secret Fire/Flame Imperishable can be the Secondary World form of the Holy Spirit in Tolkien’s fiction. The answer he gives—yes, but the description of his personhood is inchoate (36; not unlike some portions of the OT)—is the position I have always taken, especially since it takes seriously the words of Tolkien himself (as Freeman cites and explores). The only real drawback to this chapter is what I consider to be unnecessary speculation that the two anonymous voices in “Leaf by Niggle” are supposed to be representative of the Father and the Son (28–29). If he were responding to an objection to how Tolkien understood the Trinity, it would be one thing, but the whole exploration of this idea seems like he is trying to create a potential problem for Tolkien’s orthodoxy, and it ultimately represents a cul-de-sac in his discussion because he concludes based on other evidence that Tolkien maintained orthodox belief about the Trinity. If these voices were supposed to represent the Father and the Son, I doubt Tolkien would have been so oblique about the matter. More likely, as representatives of the heavenly perspective on Niggle’s work, they represent angels or something akin thereto. (I have not addressed this subject per se in depth, but you can find my notes on the story here.) But that cul-de-sac aside, this is a fine chapter.
Chapter 2 on revelation is even better. The material on general revelation tracks with what I have gone over elsewhere, especially my posts on Tolkien and Beowulf, and Freeman appropriately cites Tolkien’s work on Beowulf often here. The material on Tolkien’s views of special revelation is also solid. But the most interesting section of this chapter, and one of the best of the entire book, concerns special revelation in Middle-earth. It is a fantastic survey of Tolkien’s fiction on the various modes of revelation therein. Second to this is his analysis of the matter of whether or not Tolkien’s material was “inspired.” It tracks with what I have observed of Tolkien’s views of sub-creation, especially in his letters, and his argument is appropriately restrained by his qualifications about what “inspiration” means, since so many Protestants think only of inspiration in terms of Scripture, which neither Tolkien nor Freeman thought of his works as being. Scripture is God-breathed in a way no other writings are, but inspiration to other degrees goes beyond Scripture (and whether or not a work was “inspired” does not appear to have been a factor, or at least a prominent one, in designating the canon in the early Church, precisely because other works, and even some sermons, could be thought of as “inspired”).
Chapter 3 on creation has within its scope the initial action of creation, providence (including miracles), history, the order of being, the natural world, sub-creation, and purpose. Obviously, it is quite a diversified chapter, and it is by no means inappropriate for the scope of a theology of creation. God’s action of creation was a crucial element of Tolkien’s theology, especially for how it informed his theology of sub-creation. Providence is one of the most pervasive theological motifs in Tolkien’s fiction (especially when taking into account how widespread it is across his stories). I wish it had been more of a focus here, but in the relevant portion (69–77), Freeman is mostly concerned with the issue of divine foreknowledge and creaturely freedom in Tolkien’s fiction. Given the controversy around the question in general, Freeman’s exposition will no doubt be controversial to those who hold varying views (we noted similar issues in Rutledge’s book). Like his more professionally trained colleagues in theology, Tolkien had difficulty expressing the relations between these things in his fiction, and it is further difficult to know how these statements relate to his beliefs in the Primary World, and I do not know that this is the right place for me to lay out an exploration of the issues. In any case, Freeman is thus less definite and confident in declarations about Tolkien’s thought here than he is elsewhere, and he is content to take the reader on a winding road of issues and possibilities.
But what Freeman is much more definite about is his refutation of the charge that Tolkien’s presentation is a deistic one, which is indeed a most assuredly ignorant claim. Of course, there could have been some clearer inoculation against this idea if Freeman had explored the expressions of providence in Tolkien’s fiction, as well as his letters. Still, what he does say on the subject is worthwhile reading in how he makes distinctions concerning what it means for Eru Ilúvatar to be seen as “remote” in this time, and how he shows that Eru’s described remoteness does not mean lack of involvement or care. What further puts the lie to such a charge is Tolkien’s beliefs concerning miracles and their revelatory character.
In terms of history, which is my summary term, he is referring less to Tolkien’s philosophy of history than the narrative quality of reality and the presentation of the same. Creation has a story and its ultimate Author is God. His exposition on the order of being is also helpful for how it distinguishes between the kinds of hierarchy (e.g., there is no hierarchy of being among creatures, but there are hierarchies of power and authority) and their functions in creation. But probably his best summary statements on the matter are in Chapter 5 when he revisits the subject in the framework of angelology. For example:
So this hierarchy is less that of some Byzantine or totalitarian system of control but much closer to that of a choir or symphony, which is of course Tolkien’s opening metaphor. He compares different voices to different instruments or voices. Each plays a greater or lesser role in the music, but the piccolo adds something to the symphony that the trumpet cannot. The Music of the Ainur finds its harmony when all occupy their unique place. (130–31)
He then reviews Tolkien’s comments on stewardship, the relation of science and faerie concerning the natural world, and sub-creation. The last subject is one I have analyzed extensively elsewhere, and I stand by what Freeman has written on it. The discussion of purpose foreshadows what will be covered in the last chapter.
Chapter 4 concerns humanity/theological anthropology. This chapter rather heavily draws on Tolkien’s fiction, although it does include reference to Tolkien’s letters for his thoughts on human society, politics, and men and women. I do wish the section on mortality had reviewed the uses of “gift” and “doom” as descriptors of death in The Silmarillion. But other than that, his review of how Men are presented in Tolkien’s fiction by comparison and contrast to other races is among the best material in the book, as far as I am concerned.
Chapter 5 on angels is among the longest chapters in the book. This chapter also primarily draws on Tolkien’s fiction, because his nonfictional material about angels is not extensive, but his fictional material, especially in The Silmarillion and The History of Middle-earth, is quite extensive relative to almost any other theological subject. This chapter is especially valuable for how Freeman brings together The Silmarillion, The History of Middle-earth, Tolkien’s letters, and other scattered sources to expound on the subject. A particular highlight is his segment on the freedom and errors of angels in Tolkien’s fiction (144–47).
Chapter 6 concerns the Fall, which is another pervasive element of Tolkien’s fiction. As he says in Letter #131 (to Milton Waldman), his mythology fundamentally relates and addresses the problem of the relationship between Art (and sub-creation) and Primary Reality, which emerges into three categories of problems: Fall, Mortality, and Machine. Of these three issues he says:
With Fall inevitably, and that motive occurs in several modes. With Mortality, especially as it affects art and the creative (or as I should say, sub-creative) desire which seems to have no biological function, and to be apart from the satisfactions of plain ordinary biological life, with which, in our world, it is indeed usually at strife. This desire is at once wedded to a passionate love of the real primary world, and hence filled with the sense of mortality, and yet unsatisfied by it. It has various opportunities of ‘Fall’. It may become possessive, clinging to the things made as its own, the sub-creator wishes to be the Lord and God of his private creation. He will rebel against the laws of the Creator – especially against mortality. Both of these (alone or together) will lead to the desire for Power, for making the will more quickly effective, - and so the Machine (or Magic). By the last I intend all use of external plans or devices (apparatus) instead of developments of the inherent inner powers or talents – or even the use of these talents with the corrupted motive of dominating: bulldozing the real world, or coercing other wills. The Machine is our more obvious modern form though more closely related to Magic than is usually recognised.
Freeman reviews well how this manifests in Tolkien’s fiction. He also does well examining the various dimensions of Fall and fallenness in Tolkien’s fiction, his theology of sub-creation, and more broadly (with some hints to Tolkien’s philosophy of history, as I have reviewed elsewhere). Throughout the different twists and turns of subject matter, Freeman points to how Tolkien held fast both to the thoroughgoing effects of the Fall and to the fundamental goodness of God’s creation, so that existence itself is good, evil can only corrupt and not create, and there is no such thing as absolute evil in the way that there is Absolute Good.
Chapter 7 on evil and sin focuses more on sources of temptation, characteristics of sin and temptation, and major manifestations of evil and sin in Tolkien’s fiction (namely, deceit, domination, and idolatry). Again, there is plenty of relevant material on the subject in Tolkien’s letters, but the major focus remains on his fictional work. The section on idolatry is especially important because of how it shows the prime sin in both the Primary and Secondary Worlds, which is too often overlooked as people focus on the evils of deceit and domination in Tolkien’s work. But perhaps the best section in the chapter is on theodicy (207–10), as he illuminates elements that suffuse Tolkien’s narrative.
Chapter 8 on Satan and demons is in large part repetitive with the previous two chapters despite its more specific focus. I understand this problem, as it comes with the territory of interrelated themes and detailed theological commentary. My own work does not avoid this issue, but the reader should be aware of it. Where Freeman goes furthest beyond repetition in this chapter is on the characteristics of demonic power in Middle-earth. I do wish he had said more about Ungoliant and the Balrogs (especially Gothmog) for as significant as they are in The Silmarillion.
Chapter 9 on Christ and salvation thus addresses how Tolkien thought of the divine solution to such problems. Much of the first part of the chapter is taken up with Tolkien’s remarks on the incarnation and analogies to the incarnation. Particularly important here is his analysis of “Christ figures” in Tolkien’s writing (239–45). Tolkien was not conscious of writing analogies of Christ into his fiction, though he acknowledged the parallels as true enough, and Freeman rightly stresses the “difference in finding a ‘Christ-figure’—that is, a fictional stand-in for the Redeemer such as Aslan—and finding christological types, or partial echoes that point forward to a full realization” (240). This distinction makes this whole portion more helpful than other ultra-eager parallel hunts, such as I have noted elsewhere. Still, I would mark this section as incomplete because it does not offer much reflection on Christ the high priest. He mentions the suggestion of Frodo as analogous to the priestly office, but he does not really pursue this like he pursues the echoes of Aragorn and Gandalf. He also does not avoid questionable parallels himself, such as when he mentions Gandalf’s reappearance after his resurrection and claims after quoting Rev 1:13–17, “Tolkien reproduces this description identically in our first sight of Gandalf the White” (245). That is significantly overstating the parallels. It is interesting how the parallels go beyond vaguely reminiscent, but they are not identical, not least because he directly quoted parts of the text that have no correspondence in Gandalf’s description, such as the reference to the stars in Jesus’s hand.
As for the rest of the chapter on soteriology, Freeman rightly draws heavily on Tolkien’s comments on sub-creation, especially “On Fairy-Stories,” since this is where Tolkien provided his most extensive comments related to salvation. After all, salvation in the gospel is accomplished by the device of eucatastrophe given Primary Reality by the Author of the Primary World. He also points to how Christus Victor motif of atonement is anticipated in many ways throughout Tolkien’s work. However, I do not have much to say in favor of some of his more imaginative claims about the Harrowing of Hell (251–53). One, I do not agree with the reading of Sir Orfeo as an allegory of such an event, as that reading does not track well with the details. Two, he overextends himself in saying of Aragorn’s journey out of the Paths of the Dead, “Thus, in March, the month of Easter, the king emerges from the grave and from the hell where the cursed dead reside, out under the bright sky again” (252). I would have thought that Freeman knew as well as Tolkien that March is one of the months of Easter, and the less common one because of how the Easter cycle is set up. In any case, the date this happened in The Lord of the Rings is outside the range of the Easter season. There is something to be said for the significance of the echoes of the later date of March 25 being when the Ring was destroyed, but that is not being pursued here.
Chapter 10 on the Church naturally tilts more towards Tolkien’s letters and non-Middle-earth works. And as we have reviewed elsewhere, there is much to cover here of his distinctly Catholic beliefs concerning the Church, Mary, the sacraments (especially the Mass), and even some material on sermons. Tolkien was a reflective Catholic who took his confession seriously (both of his faith and the sacrament itself). Interestingly, one of the relatively few quite deliberate links he wrote in of his faith with his fiction was how lembas echoes the Eucharist. And one of Tolkien’s most quoted letters (Letters #43) provides his most extensively articulated thoughts on marriage (though the draft of Letter #49 to C. S. Lewis is also noteworthy). This is arguably the chapter that most distinctly shows Freeman’s commitment to presenting Tolkien’s views as they are without too much intervention of registering his disagreements as a Protestant. That is something I have aimed to do in my own work as well, since people are reading to understand Tolkien, not me, Freeman, or others who take up this work.
Chapter 11 on the Christian life concerns ethics and the exercise of he will in daily life. Tolkien has much ethical wisdom to share in both his nonfiction and his fiction. Indeed, he says to his friend and reviewer Katharine Farrer (wife of the scholar Austin Farrer) in Letter #148a (August 1954):
In fact I was delighted that you stressed the ‘morality’. I think actually it is that which gives the story its ‘realness’ and coherence – which my critics seem to feel – rather than any pictorial vividness. It was not ‘planned’, of course, but arose naturally in the attempt to treat the matter seriously; but it is now the foundation. For me the ‘kernel’ is in Frodo’s last words to Sam: ‘I have been too deeply hurt. I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: someone has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them … all that I had or might have had, I leave to you.’
Particular highlights of this chapter are the sections on grace (spanning both fiction and nonfiction), mercy, and sanctification. The only problem I have with this chapter is what I think was a missed opportunity. There is no section on courage, despite this being a traditional cardinal virtue. The manner in which Tolkien treated this topic in fiction and nonfiction, especially in interaction with the notions of heroism in Old English stories, is fascinating, and it is something I have drawn attention to in my own commentaries on Tolkien. I would have liked to have seen Freeman’s interaction with Tolkien’s material in this regard.
The final chapter is appropriately about “last things.” By this label, he includes death and what is beyond. This chapter includes an illuminating review of the presentation of death in Tolkien’s fiction, especially in the debate of Finrod and Andreth (in Morgoth’s Ring). He presents the resolution of this dialectical presentation as, “whether death is a penalty or gift may depend on whether such a gift is accepted. Submission to the will of God transforms the curse of death into an opportunity for hope, while clinging to life in rebellion against God ends in despair” (319). This well paraphrases what Tolkien himself said about what the notion of death as the Gift of Ilúvatar meant for the Elves in Letter #212 to Rhona Beare (October 1958): “A divine ‘punishment’ is also a divine ‘gift’, if accepted, since its object is ultimate blessing, and the supreme inventiveness of the Creator will make ‘punishments’ (that is changes of design) produce a good not otherwise to be attained: a ‘mortal’ Man has probably (an Elf would say) a higher if unrevealed destiny than a longeval one.”
Similarly helpful is his review of how Tolkien presents eschatological hope in his fiction. Tolkien’s own eschatology was orthodox, and at various times he included more direct links to Christian eschatology in his fiction, but because of points he has made elsewhere, he became more reticent to make the links to direct in his Secondary World expressions. Rather, he sought to leave room for the yet-to-be-revealed eschatology while at times trying to anticipate that revelation in his stories. This was one of those struggles he went through in maintaining the integrity of the Secondary World while also keeping its characterization consistent with an imaginary pre-Christian (even pre-Israel) time of this world. But what he preserves as proper eschatology still points forward to the hope for resurrection and new creation.
Finally, he examines what Tolkien has to say related to final judgment, hell, purgatory, and heaven. In light of what he himself has already said about Tolkien’s eschatology, and consistently with what I have noted elsewhere, I am glad that he made a crucial distinction in the last section. Namely, “One must, however, distinguish between heaven (the place on another plane of existence where God has his throne) and the final unity of heaven and earth depicted at the end of Revelation” (335). What many people associate with “heaven” is not proper to the biblical visions of a final eschatological state, which involve the renewal of creation through the union of heaven and earth, as shown most vividly in Rev 21–22.
Beyond these points of overview, I must also admit a complaint about formatting. Freeman’s book is remarkably well researched, but the way it is presented leaves something to be desired. I am, of course, talking about the use of the dreaded endnotes as opposed to footnotes. I do not blame this on Freeman, as he references “footnotes” (which I noted specifically in the prolegomena and the last chapter, though there were likely others), although his book only features endnotes. From what I have seen of other Lexham books, this is just their convention, and I say they should be ashamed of themselves for it.
With that being said, I highly recommend Freeman’s book to Christian Tolkien enthusiasts, especially to those who are interested in Tolkien’s theology and its influence on his works of various kinds. For my money, Chapters 2 and 6 were the overall best, though that is by no means to denigrate the other chapters, as I would think should be clear. It is useful for reading front to back or as a topical reference resource, particularly if you want to branch out and read the many sources he cites for yourself. If you read this book, you are going to learn plenty in the process about Tolkien and his works outside of the ones most are aware of. As far as books written on Tolkien with this interest that are not simply focused on his fiction, this is the best one I have read (as far as books focused on his fiction, I think Rutledge’s book is the best). I commend Freeman for his breadth and depth of research, and for so well achieving his goal of a reasonably comprehensive systematic treatment of Tolkien’s theology.