Some thoughts on the material presented:

I think it was Alexander Pope who said that a little learning is a dangerous thing, and I think that axiom applies to the critic-priest's presentation against Tolkien. What follows is a defense/response to some of the specific claims he makes. I thought I had written something like this years ago, but didn’t find it in my posting history. I've seen this presentation before. FYI, I'll be responding to the text copy rather than the audio. https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-fantasy-writing-of-tolkien-was.html


 Although the priest is able, apparently, to provide some evidence for his claims, all the evidence is ill considered and divorced—sometimes violently and contradictorily—from its original context. A closer and more objective look at Tolkien sufficiently and resoundingly debunks or at least casts significant doubt on almost everything the critic-priest has to say about him.

I am going to focus mainly on the first part of the presentation, since that is the part where he makes his case against Tolkien. I’ll take it in order. I’m not responding to literally everything he said, but I am certainly attempting to respond what I believe are all his main points.

Regarding myth and allegory…

Tolkien did not have some irrational phobia of allegory. What Tolkien had was a cordial distaste for a very specific kind of allegory, i.e., the kind of allegory where there is only one possible meaning or interpretation of a figure, event, place, artifact, etc. Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia is a good example of this—Aslan is simply Christ, full stop. There’s nothing more or less to interpreting the character. In Tolkien’s view, fiction is better rendered not without allegory, but where the allegory has a more generalized character—for instance, he described LotR is a “fundamentally religious and Catholic work” and that it was also an allegory of power (Letters 142 & 186). He said in another letter that “the only fully intelligible story is an allegory. And one finds, even in imperfect human 'literature', that the better and more consistent an allegory is the more easily it can be read 'just as a story'; and the better and more closely woven a story is the more easily can those so minded find allegory in it." (letter 109). Clearly, it just isn't true to say that Tolkien disliked allegory full stop and leave it at that.


Ironically, the kind of allegory Tolkien uses—the kind which he believes is not just tolerable but actually inextricable from a good story—is exactly the kind that scripture uses! Scripture does not have 1:1 allegories. Melchisidech is not an allegory for Christ, but an allegory for Christ, and for the new priesthood, and for the sacrifice of the Mass, etc. The critic-priest’s suggestion that Tolkien is anti-allegorical is simply false, and his further implication that in being anti-allegorical Tolkien runs afoul of God and scripture is even more false.

This is kind of ironic… in the previous paragraph the critic-priest criticizes Tolkien for his dislike of allegory, and in this paragraph Tolkien’s problem is that he doesn’t trust enough in realism’s ability to transmit truth! You’ll have to pick one, you can’t have both. This reads like someone who is simply searching for problems, without any attention to whether the overall critique is coherent.

But the problems with this criticism are even more serious than the criticism over allegory. For starters, the quote from Pearce is mangled beyond recognition. Here is what Pearce actually said:


“[Tolkien] understood the meaning of myth in a way that has not been grasped by his critics and this misapprehension is at the very root of their failure to appreciate his work. For most modern critics, a myth is merely another word for a lie or a falsehood, something which is intrinsically not true. For Tolkien, myth had virtually the opposite meaning. It was the only way that certain transcendent truths could be expressed in intelligible form" (Pearce, p. XIII).

Are alarm bells ringing? You bet. Anyways, I think Pearce’s description here is completely accurate, based on what I’ve read of and from Tolkien. Tolkien took myth to refer to the transcendental truths about reality, human nature, etc. and he preferred the mythic format to the “realistic novel” format for this very reason. Again, the critic-priest’s attempt to pigeon-hole Tolkien as being anti-Gospel or anti-Church is just vain.

A quick aside, since the critic-priest seems to rely almost exclusively on Pearce for his analysis: Pearce is a relatively competent Tolkien scholar, but at the end of the day he is one of many Tolkien scholars and I personally don’t agree with everything Pearce has to say about Tolkien’s work. And that’s usually the case when it comes to scholarship. Scholarship is arguable, and there are different sides and interpretations available. The critic-priest should not use Pearce as though he is the singular authority of Tolkien. A serious critique of Tolkien would need to take more than just one author’s view. And it would also need to incorporate the things that Tolkien himself said, which the critic-priest only infrequently does.

The Problem with Myth...

Moving on, the critic-priest spends several paragraphs talking about how myth is inferior to the gospel and how the proof is in the pudding so to speak—in the 60s and 70s (the two decades following LotR’s release) people lost faith rather than being buffeted in it or converted to it.  But the critic-priest has already mischaracterized what Tolkien has in mind by myth, so his various quotes from Pius XII and references to Baruch are just inapplicable. Moreover, the critic priest by this point has subtly shifted his premise: he is essentially, by this point, supposing that Tolkien’s intent in writing LotR was to provide a mythology to supplant Christianity! An outrageous assumption, frankly. If the critic-priest was laboring under the assumption that LotR is a sufficient replacement for going to Mass, believing the truths of the catechism, following the moral law, etc., then that’s his problem or the problem of whoever sold him LotR… it’s not Tolkien’s. And the suggestion that the cultural revolution is in some way related to the proliferation of Lotr is… ridiculous. I’m sure readers of Cathinfo can find a perfectly satisfactory alternative explanation to why the 1960s and 70s were times of rapid moral decline without blaming Tolkien 😉

Now, the truth is that the Church has long tolerated myth (there are times and places where treatises against myths were issued, and this was because in those times and places the myths were actual substitute religions—intended as such, and taken as such; clearly not a fair comparison to LotR). An ecclesiastical education has always required students to learn Latin and Greek, and the mode of learning these languages was to read the ancient Roman and Greek pagan myths. St. Basil has a rather famous treatise on the right way to approach the works of the pagans, and it’s exactly what you’d expect: take them where they are good, and be ready to identify (and leave them) where they are bad. Tolkien—who was a practicing and devout Catholic, whatever his failures are—must, as a mythmaker, certainly get more credit than actual literal pagan mythmakers.  At worst, St. Basil’s rule applies to Tolkien, too. Take him where he is good, leave him where he is not. Avoid him at all costs because myths are evil? This is hysterical.
 
Briefly I also want to mention the critic-priests naturalization of mythical creatures in scripture. He says the unicorn is a rhinoceros, the leviathan a whale, etc…. While these are probably acceptable interpretations, they’re by no means the only ones. Personally I think David really did mean unicorns, and he also mentions basilisks, and Isais mentions vampires—not sure how we naturalize a basilisk or a vampire. At any rate, I just want to point out that the critic-priest has constantly shifting standards, and it seems that as long as he can make a point against Tolkien he’ll do it, regardless of how consistent the point is with the rest of his critique. So far Tolkien is bad because: he rejects the symbolism of allegory, but also because he rejects the truthful nature of realism, and also he rejects the naturalistic interpretations of mythical creatures in scripture… there's a lot of internal tension in this criticism that on the one hand says Tolkien should have greater appreciation for symbolism, on the other he needs greater appreciation for realism, all from a man who takes mythical references in scripture and gives naturalist interpretations of them... It doesn't jive well.

There are a variety of simply factual errors too… Meister Eckhart’s condemnation had nothing to do with anything remotely analogous to what Tolkien was up to. Theosophy has nothing to do with what Tolkien was up to. Matthew Fox? C’mon.  This is just a very vague smear by very, very remote association.

At any rate, the vast majority of the critic-priest’s criticism of Tolkien as a myth-maker falls flat because he is treating some generic kind of myth, and the worst kind, rather than what Tolkien actually had in mind. 


The Silmarillion, Gnosticism, Magic

Moving on to the Critic-priest’s more specific problems with LotR and the Silmarillion… The fundamental problem here seems to simply be this: Tolkien didn’t write the Gospel or a catechism. He points out dissimilarities between parts of Tolkien’s story and scripture or Tradition, and then uses these dissimilarities to argue that Tolkien’s myth is incapable of communicating truth. The critic-priest sounds like the type who needs that 1:1 allegory to make sense of fiction.

I find that this critique, like all the others, ultimately reduces to the question not just of LotR, but of fiction per se. The critic priest—seriously, apparently—criticizes Gandalf for casting the Witch King into the abyss, without mentioning eternal punishment. From which we are supposed to infer that no such thing as eternal punishment exists, I guess?

This standard—the standard whereby fiction is deemed dangerous because it fails to mention every Catholic truth—renders fiction per se immoral. And I just don’t see how that is a conclusion we can take seriously. The Church has long been a patron of the liberal arts and of literature. Not all of it, of course, but much of it. Catholic education has included, without any tumult, experience with the works of Shakespeare, Sophocles, and many other iconic western writers. If the standard by which we judge fiction is whether or not it is literally identical to the deposit of faith, then clearly all fiction fails. 

I’d like to address two more specific claims of the critic priest’s, and then wrap up.  First, there’s the claim of Gnosticism in Tolkien’s creation myth. Then there’s the claims about Tolkien’s use of magic.

It is true that the Gnostics believed in a creation through intermediary beings instead of the Creator God, but Gnosticism holds that there is this awful tension and violence between the demiurges and the “real” god, and in fact the whole “point” of Gnosticism is to be released from the prison of the material world (created by the demiurges against the will of “god”). This is why gnostics always manifest in history as dualists—they regard the body and matter as evil, and believe that our fundamental duty and calling in life is to rush to death so that our souls can be freed from our bodies and the material world—both of which are prisons. The problem with Gnosticism is more that than the idea of God allowing or empowering lesser beings to participate in creation. Of course, God did not in fact allow or empower the angles to create the world, but there is nothing contradictory to the nature of God to have done so. After all, He most definitely ennobles humankind to participate in the ongoing work of human creation. So, Tolkien’s creation myth isn’t identical to what scripture says about creation. But to call it gnostic and heretical, as the critic-priest has done, is an exaggeration. It would be more accurate to simply say that Tolkien’s creation myth didn’t happen. But that isn’t a very salacious claim. And everyone already knows that.

Regarding magic, this one is misunderstood by the critic-priest and also, I think, by Pearce. In Tolkien’s world the “magic” is really, by and large, special (as in, pertaining to species) powers some characters have. Gandalf is a maiar (analogous to an angel) who, by virtue of his nature, has certain special abilities. Same with elves and the Numenorians.  I know that the word “magic” is used at times (more in the Hobbit, I think, than in LotR) but it simply isn’t. It’s something else. The only magic in the actual sense (i.e., alchemical attempts and other endeavors to exercise unnatural power over nature) is used exclusively by the bad guys, and the point is always that they are acting unlawfully and that havoc ensues.


Tolkien and Modernity

I’m going to leave my defense there, and close with this: in his second conference, the critic-priest more or less argues that the reason LotR is popular is that it affirms all the insipid assumptions and values of modernity. I vehemently disagree with that, and some of the reasons why are included in my defense above, but a complete treatment of that topic will need to be left for another post. As a matter of fact, I think that the reason Tolkien is popular is exactly the opposite.

No one actually likes modernity, or few do. Modernity is characterized by purposelessness, alienating individuality, and an insufferably mundane malaise (among other things). The modern condition is a miserable one, and even godless people will tell you that. The reason that LotR is so popular is that it is not these things. In Middle Earth, everyone and everything has a purpose, even if that purpose is not yet revealed. In Middle Earth there are peoples with strong identities and cultures. In Middle Earth, despondency is overcome by heroism.

Contrary to the progressivist principle that over the passage of time mankind inevitably improves and progresses, Middle Earth is a place where unless there are noble and virtuous men to preserve and guard what is good in the world, people decay and decline. Tolkien upholds the doctrine of degeneration rather than progress, as Middle Earth is a place where unless the good guys are vigilant, the devil devours and over time cultures and civilizations decline rather than improve. There is hardly anything more anti-modern than the idea that things get worse, not better, over time.

Our own times and culture as so modern, so progressive, etc. that Tolkien’s work provides a welcome respite. Of course, the primary reason for the condition of the modern world is that the Church has been infiltrated and her authority has all but completely disappeared. And Tolkien’s work is no substitute for a functioning Catholic hierarchy and teaching Church. No one—least of all Tolkien himself—would ever even remotely suggest otherwise.  But Tolkien is a lot more accessible than the Catholic Church (notwithstanding the various attempts to corrupt his work, too). And people feel like they are taking less of a risk reading a book of fiction than reading the Gospel or a catechism.

Finally, I would hardly say that Simeon needs to stop everything and start reading LotR again. I think we all know there are things, including good things, that some of us give up because we struggle to use them in moderation. That is the right thing to do. So don’t take my response as an indication that Simeon did the wrong thing.


If there is anything specific about the presentation that I didn't address and someone would like me to, please bring it up. I'm in the mood to talk Tolkien.

MITH: This is kind of ironic… in the previous paragraph the critic-priest criticizes Tolkien for his dislike of allegory, and in this paragraph Tolkien’s problem is that he doesn’t trust enough in realism’s ability to transmit truth! You’ll have to pick one, you can’t have both .... But the problems with this criticism are even more serious than the criticism over allegory. For starters, the quote from Pearce is mangled beyond recognition.

Simeon: I agree that that is correct. My understanding is that gnosticism is a weave of a multiplicity of falsities, with a dash of corrupted Christianity thrown in. A sewer of heresy, and Pope St. Pius X might qualify it, and certainly the underpinning of the demon we call Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ.

Pax: That's not a standard definition of gnosticism and it's way too broad to use.

Pax: I don't know anyone who claims that LOTR is catholic, so the application of heresy is misguided.  Can't criticize a screwdriver for not being a hammer.

Pax: Simeon, ultimately the priest's point is that Tolkein's works are not 100% catholic so we should not read them.  This is extremism.