REDEMPTION IN TOLKIEN'S RELIGIOUS COSMOLOGY

At the heart of J. R. R. Tolkien's(1892-1973) work is a strife between his two worldviews, that of Catholic Christianity and that of the Norse myths. This strife plays a major role in how Tolkien's religious cosmology plays out its linear progress from creation of the world to the final, future defeat of Melkor.

The former has Redemption of the humanity, and for a time after the return of Jesus Christ, of the world at its core. Humanity not only can but will find Salvation through embracing Christ's message. The latter is more bleak - there will be no redemption, only destruction of the world and its gods. As guaranteed as the Redemption is in Catholic Christianity, as certain is the Ragnarök in the Norse. No matter how noble and courageous struggle is fought, there will be no salvation. The end of the world will spare no one, not even the gods.

Tolkien's Middle-Earth is balanced precariously between these two. It embraces far more of the latter while giving eras of Redemption for the world and its races - impermanent, imperfect Redemptions that shall not last and each which is lesser than the one that existed before the longer period of decline and rule of Evil between them. His vision for Middle-Earth includes a literal Ragnarök, softened in the manner of late Icelandic stories where the good god Baldur, slain, will rise again in manner of Christ and will create a new, better world. This world we don't see in his creation, only the Ragnarök in which, we are told, Melkor will face his final defeat and the world will be destroyed.

Although Tolkien's Eru Ilúvatar has many aspects of Abrahamic, omnipotent monotheistic god it's clear that it is not truly omnipotent. It can't salvage its creation, redeem it. The flaw that Melkor created keeps growing, even when there are eras of Redemption, and will devour it in the end. Eru Iluvatar has more in common with the Norse gods in this aspect, that its control is limited, although it - unlike the main Norse gods - is a creator god. In the end this means that although hope does exist, that final victory for Good over Evil is promised and taken as a certainty (to which extent this certainty is a religious belief in in-universe, to which extent it's the author's decisive, creator god -like decision is another matter), it means that the price of that victory is the destruction of the creation itself.

There will be no final thousand-year era of peace and prosperity in Earth under benevolent god as in the Christian visions of the end of time. Instead of a final era of peace and prosperity, a final rising crescendo, each new Era will be diminished, lesser than the one before. The classical antiquity's worldview of consecutive Golden, Silver and so forth eras starting from the rule of gods walking among men on Earth has seeped into Tolkien's otherwise mainly Norse, secondarily Christian cosmos of Middle-Earth.

What will be after Evil's final defeat is left shrouded - but Eru Ilúvatar has been, in most important aspects, defeated by its lack of omnipotence. Its creation has been corrupted and destroyed. There will be no Redemption, nor Salvation, although there will be victory - in the form of a Ragnarök where the dead will fight the fallen 'Arch-Angel' Melkor. The vision of the later Norse tales of Ragnarök from Christianized Iceland, bleakness tempered with hope, is the one that Tolkien's vision in the end embraces, but the hope is even more faint, more pale light than that in those. Good will triumph over Evil, but the price for the victory is the entire creation, and what will come afterwards is unknown, beyond the knowledge of both men and elves and the Maia like Gandalf.