That Tolkien was a Creationist (of some sort) is indisputable; consider Letter 96, for example:
As for Eden. I think most Christians, except the v[ery] simple and uneducated or those protected in other ways, have been rather bustled and hustled now for some generations by the self-styled scientists, and they've sort of tucked Genesis into a lumber-room of their mind as not very fashionable furniture, a bit ashamed to have it about the house, don't you know, when the bright clever young people called
The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien 96: To Christopher Tolkien. January 1945
That does not, however, necessarily mean he was against biological evolution, so long as the act of creation was still divine; that's essentially what Theistic Evolution is. What's more, there are explicit references to evolutionary processes in his writings; Hobbits being descended from Men is one example, as is this passage from The Hobbit:
[Bilbo] could not swim; and he thought, too, of nasty slimy things, with big bulging blind eyes, wriggling in the water. There are strange things living in the pools and lakes in the hearts of mountains: fish whose fathers swam in, goodness only knows how many years ago, and never swam out again, while their eyes grew bigger and bigger and bigger from trying to see in the blackness
The Hobbit Chapter 5: "Riddles in the Dark"
In an essay published in Morgoth's Ring, he expresses the opinion that growth and change are inherent natural processes, placed there by the Valar during their creation1:
When [the Valar] perceived that Melkor would now turn darkness and night to his purposes, as he had aforetime sought to wield flame, they were grieved; for it was a part of their design that there should be change and alteration upon Earth, and neither day perpetual nor night without end.
History of Middle-earth X Morgoth's Ring Part 5: "Myths Transformed" II
And, in a footnote on that passage:
For it is indeed of the nature of Eä and the Great History that naught may stay unchanged in time, and things which do so, or appear to do so, or endeavour to remain so, become a weariness, and are loved no longer (or are at best unheeded.
History of Middle-earth X Morgoth's Ring Part 5: "Myths Transformed" II
As our good friends at Christianity.SE tell us, there's not necessarily a contradiction with being Catholic and accepting evolution; quoting from an answer to that question (in turn quoting a statement by Pope Pius XII:
[The] Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter - for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God.
Although this was published in 1950, while Tolkien was nearing completion on The Lord of the Rings, it seems unlikely that this was a radical view of the time.
Pope Pius' statement is quite similar to the theology of Middle-earth, where growth and change (and subcreation by lesser beings than Iluvatar) is possible, but the "soul" still ultimately comes from God.
1 Really sub-creation, since true Creation is again the exclusive purview of God
No comments:
Post a Comment