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Location
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Document Type
Presentation
Event Website
https://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-53.htm
Start Date
4-8-2024 3:30 PM
End Date
4-8-2024 4:20 PM
Description
Ask most people for Tolkien’s greatest and most original contribution to theology and they will either not understand the question or respond (very rightly) that it is his elucidation and application of the imago Dei in his doctrine of sub-creation. Eschatology—the doctrine of last things—will probably not occur to them. They will have missed an important element of Tolkien’s worldview and an important reason why their sojourns in Middle-earth help to restore their ability to live with hope in the primary world. For the world-shaping power of the Christian eschaton to bend the course of the cosmos into history, into story shaped with meaning, is reflected in the world-historical structure of Tolkien’s Middle-earth in ways that are central to its unfolding and that give meaning to the lives of the children of Iluvatar who live there or who visit via their imaginations. And thereby hangs a Tale. This paper will investigate the eschatology of Tolkien’s Middle-earth, its similarities to (and differences from) Christian eschatology, and the ways in which theses insights elucidate the hope that sustains characters like Gandalf, Aragorn, and Frodo in their moments of greatest darkness.
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Included in
A Far Green Country: The Eschatology of Tolkien’s Middle-earth
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Ask most people for Tolkien’s greatest and most original contribution to theology and they will either not understand the question or respond (very rightly) that it is his elucidation and application of the imago Dei in his doctrine of sub-creation. Eschatology—the doctrine of last things—will probably not occur to them. They will have missed an important element of Tolkien’s worldview and an important reason why their sojourns in Middle-earth help to restore their ability to live with hope in the primary world. For the world-shaping power of the Christian eschaton to bend the course of the cosmos into history, into story shaped with meaning, is reflected in the world-historical structure of Tolkien’s Middle-earth in ways that are central to its unfolding and that give meaning to the lives of the children of Iluvatar who live there or who visit via their imaginations. And thereby hangs a Tale. This paper will investigate the eschatology of Tolkien’s Middle-earth, its similarities to (and differences from) Christian eschatology, and the ways in which theses insights elucidate the hope that sustains characters like Gandalf, Aragorn, and Frodo in their moments of greatest darkness.
https://dc.swosu.edu/mythcon/mc53/schedule/40
