Human Rights and Dignity

S

SwallowedUpInVictory

Member
In Judeo-christian tradition man is made in the image of God. This is the basis for human dignity and was the anchor for human rights movements and the reason why their declarations were developed in the western world. I wonder where in Middle-Earth we have a parallel. Elves and Men are called "Children of Eru" which sounds similar to biblical "Children of God" being quite different though (to Jewish and different again to Christian understanding).
Nevertheless, "Children of Eru" is a special term only used for those two races in the whole of creation of Arda. Why? The Ainur did not take part in their design, I know, but what makes them so special compared to the Ainur?
I hoped to get an answer in NOME and the chapter "Primal Impulse" looked very promising but in the end it only talks about the Children of God being in the image of animals and plants. In other words not in the image of God but in the image of a great design.

"But Eru even in intruding the Children took as their shape a form [?that]
though altered and refined, resembles in less or even in great degree the
forms of beasts."

Is the concept of being in the image of God so strongly biblical that it would have destroyed the immersion into Middle-Earth? Is there something like Human/Elven Dignity in Middle-Earth at all?
The ends does not justify the means (especially when it comes to human lives) in Tolkiens vision. But I also remember the insinuation of Gandalf torturing Gollum for a greater cause. Also some argue that there is rather a Dignity of Nature, not only oh Humans.
I would like to know your thoughts
 
I’ve always understood the Ainur as equally ‘created by Eru’ but I think the real kicker is the connecting of feä and hroä that sets Elves and Humans apart from Ainur. This is what is different from Beasts, who don’t have a feä even if they share some biological similarities with the Incarnates. As Carl Sagan said ‘we are stardust’ - all made out of the same erma. My understanding is that it is the feä that sets us apart from beasts, and the close and indelible connection we have with our hroä - and thus impacts our ways of interacting with the world and with each other - that sets us apart from the Ainur. What I’m loving about NoME is the care with which Tolkien writes to attribute whose interpretation this is. These are theories developed by Elven philosophers based on their own observations and their learnings from the Valar - but still in the end it is them trying to make sense of things. This keeps positioning Tolkien as the translator and interpreter of found texts, rather than the author of a fiction that he knows the answers within.
 
Agree but what does it tell us about their Dignity? Elbes/Men vs Ainur vs Dwarfes vs Beasts vs Ents vs Plants. Do they all have the same Dignity bcs none is made in the image of Eru?
 
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