Virtue in LOTR - Introduction

For the purposes of this brief study I’m going to assume a general familiarity with J.R.R. Tolkien’s work titled, “The Lord of the Rings” (LOTR). In addition, I’ll assume that the book is authoritative in saying what Tolkien meant to say although the movies have become, I suspect, the primary way in which this generation knows Tolkien. I may also refer to “The Hobbit” and “The Silmarillion” from time to time. This class is very brief so we will not be able to look at all that Tolkien has to offer. I hope you realize that we could easily spend a year on this material without exhausting the points that Tolkien has in the book. I may say book instead of books since Tolkien really meant it as one book but most publishers haven’t seen it that way.

One way (I think the best way) to view Tolkien’s great work “The Lord of the Rings” is as a meditation on virtue. It is a very long meditation but it is a meditation none the less if you focus on it that way. Understanding Tolkien as a lover of language – he even created new ones for his book – and as a devout but prickly Roman Catholic; we can begin to see the importance that he attached to virtue and to language associated with virtue. The virtues in “The Lord of the Ring” are generally all in view simultaneously.

Tolkien’s work was intended to be “other” in construction as a fantasy and not an allegory. He was very picky about the way a fantasy was developed and disagreed strongly with his contemporary and friend C.S. Lewis about the way that Lewis would blend various mythologies and construct obvious allegories. What I mean by that is that you’ll never see someone like Aslan in LOTR. Lewis made Aslan an obvious allegory of Christ. The death of Aslan in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is an allegory of Christ’s death. Tolkien’s work reflects spiritual truth in flashes of light and you can never say “Oh well Aragorn is THE Christ figure” because as soon as you do someone else will become an illustration of Christ (i.e., Gandalf or Frodo).

I owe a debt to Ralph Wood (Professor of Theology and Literature, Baylor University) in putting the class together. His book titled, “The Gospel According to Tolkien” is an excellent summary of the key points that Tolkien meant to make in the books. Our outline for this study is a little different. Here we will first study the Cardinal Virtues and then next week we’ll study the Theological Virtues.

Woods says that students have often said that after studying Tolkien’s work they just feel clean. I think that due to the way in which the work causes us to focus on virtue for such an extended period. Unless you have read the Silmarillion by Tolkien you will not even see a name for God in the book. Somewhat like the book of Esther in the Bible, God is the constant subtext and His hand is everywhere but the focus for Tolkien here in the trilogy is virtue. Even as I’ve prepared to teach on the LOTR and the classical virtues it has impacted my life. I’ve seen the challenge in this life to living virtuously and how I fall short and it has been an encouragement to live life the way God intends for us to live. Pat and I spent Friday night and Saturday of this week over in Atlanta listening to Ralph Wood teach a series called “Deadly Vices – Living Virtues.”
God challenges us to live our lives in a virtuous manner. We do not live lives of virtue to earn salvation because that is a free gift in Christ but, as obedient children, God calls us to be virtuous.
For example:

Ephesians 4:1-3
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

THE CARDINAL AND THEOLOGICAL VIRTUES
Well at the start we have to ask, “How do we define virtue or the virtues?” I think that the Church figured this out nearly 2000 years ago and I’ll stick with that general set of virtues as an outline. I’ll define virtue and the virtues in a classical way. I’ll discuss virtue as defined by the combination of cardinal virtues and the theological virtues. Therefore we have 4 cardinal virtues and they are prudence, temperance, courage, and justice. The chief cardinal virtue is prudence. The cardinal virtues were important to the classical Greeks and the early Christian Church recognized them as Scriptural and naturally important even to fallen mankind and adopted them. On the other hand we have three theological virtues which are love, hope, and faith. Love is the chief of theological virtues and in a Christian it is superior to the other virtues and not just hope and faith but, through prudence, will also rule in the realm of the cardinal virtues as well. The theological virtues are not natural to fallen mankind. As an example let us consider love. As a theological virtue we mean God’s love (agape - ἀγάπη) alive in our hearts in which volition leads emotion in submission to God. That volition is called to be in agreement with the volition, the timing, and the methods of God. This is not something that fallen mankind has participated in. This is not to say that fallen mankind has never done a kind or loving deed. It is to say that fallen mankind has never lived out agape and we’ll discuss this more when we discuss this virtue in particular. The love you see portrayed in popular culture has emotion leading volition (backwards) and is not submitted to God.