FoxFire
Member
So as not to get in to a long discussion on the Questions to Narnion forum, I've placed my response to Halstein's question from this thread https://forums.signumuniversity.org/index.php?threads/punishment-vs-gift.692/ here.
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I think Tolkien was purposely on to something when he called death the "Gift of Men" (only to be lamented later by humanity). When he wrote and created his alternate universe with Arda and Middle-earth, the entire thing was really quite blasphemous to his Catholic/Christian upbringing.
The Christian (and many other) theologies include this idea of 'eternal life'. Likely because our lives are so short. We would like our lives to be much longer than they are. But how can they be longer? Science (knowledge, medicine and technology) has extended human lifespans to a degree. Though in Tolkien's day (at least when he was writing Lord of the Rings) it was not commonly conceived that science might extend human lifespans to hundreds or thousands of years or more. Even today that's not something most imagine happening. Only an all powerful creator deity is thought to be able to provide extended existence. And if he extends it beyond a typical human lifespan, surely it must then be eternally? Yet, how much extra life (or existence) do we REALLY want to have?
In general people don't really examine this question too closely. Most people don't want to die. Or certainly not after only 80, 90, 100 years. So... many religions offer ETERNAL life. Why not? Sounds good, right? But... the truth is, eternal life would ultimately become a living hell. No matter how 'wonderful' that life is.
What can you do in 100 years? Not nearly enough. 1000 years? So much more. 10,000 years? Nearly everything you can currently think you'd find interesting or fulfilling, including thousands of years of just relaxing and taking in the beauty of your surroundings (like Tolkien elves seem to do). But ultimately it would get quite boring as you might be thinking as you're sung to on your 23,641 'st birthday (use number candles on the cake please).
Then what about existence for 100,000 years? A million? A billion? A trillion? One googolplex years!!! You'd have explored and examined in finite detail everything in the universe down to their subatomic particles a million times over, thought every possible thought, learned everything there is to know, and done everything there is to do a billion times over. The banality and boredom of it would have set in an eternity ago, feelings (especially if they're always positive feelings) would become meaningless, continued existence would become utterly meaningless and yet you wouldn't have even scratched the surface of eternity. Inability to die, no matter how pleasant your surroundings, would become hell.
I believe Tolkien had conceived this and understood it, and didn't think the idea of immortality, or eternal life as promised by his religion, was so great. Eternal life would become unbearable the longer it went on. And in Middle-earth, the immortal elves grow weary of existence after thousands of years.
Life, our lives, human lives, have meaning and purpose because we are unique, because the odds of us (individually) being here are astronomically unimaginably small and not inevitably preordained (we each won the cosmic lottery), AND because our lives are limited (albeit too limited - give me a Numenorian lifespan any day). Since even after just 10's of thousand of years of existence it would become wearisome, boring and tedious, oblivion, eternal slumber (which for all we know of humans in the Middle-earth universe is what happens to them) IS truly a 'gift'. And yet humans in Middle-earth (as in reality) do not appreciate this. We (most people) lament the idea that we will cease to exist one day. Again that's likely because our lives are TOO short. An immortal elf surely has a different perspective on the subject. And so, they consider men's mortality a GIFT. One that was denied to the Oath breakers, who desperately desired redemption so that they might finally be allowed to die and go into oblivion (annihilation).
Personally, I'm of the mind that Tolkien, despite the expectations of his social circle and in particular those of his religion, was not particularly taken with the mythology of our universe's creation nor certain ideas put forth by his religion. And this, the ability to cease existence entirely, is one he saw as being a welcoming gift rather than the curse it has long been considered, and told to be in Genesis.
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I think Tolkien was purposely on to something when he called death the "Gift of Men" (only to be lamented later by humanity). When he wrote and created his alternate universe with Arda and Middle-earth, the entire thing was really quite blasphemous to his Catholic/Christian upbringing.
The Christian (and many other) theologies include this idea of 'eternal life'. Likely because our lives are so short. We would like our lives to be much longer than they are. But how can they be longer? Science (knowledge, medicine and technology) has extended human lifespans to a degree. Though in Tolkien's day (at least when he was writing Lord of the Rings) it was not commonly conceived that science might extend human lifespans to hundreds or thousands of years or more. Even today that's not something most imagine happening. Only an all powerful creator deity is thought to be able to provide extended existence. And if he extends it beyond a typical human lifespan, surely it must then be eternally? Yet, how much extra life (or existence) do we REALLY want to have?
In general people don't really examine this question too closely. Most people don't want to die. Or certainly not after only 80, 90, 100 years. So... many religions offer ETERNAL life. Why not? Sounds good, right? But... the truth is, eternal life would ultimately become a living hell. No matter how 'wonderful' that life is.
What can you do in 100 years? Not nearly enough. 1000 years? So much more. 10,000 years? Nearly everything you can currently think you'd find interesting or fulfilling, including thousands of years of just relaxing and taking in the beauty of your surroundings (like Tolkien elves seem to do). But ultimately it would get quite boring as you might be thinking as you're sung to on your 23,641 'st birthday (use number candles on the cake please).
Then what about existence for 100,000 years? A million? A billion? A trillion? One googolplex years!!! You'd have explored and examined in finite detail everything in the universe down to their subatomic particles a million times over, thought every possible thought, learned everything there is to know, and done everything there is to do a billion times over. The banality and boredom of it would have set in an eternity ago, feelings (especially if they're always positive feelings) would become meaningless, continued existence would become utterly meaningless and yet you wouldn't have even scratched the surface of eternity. Inability to die, no matter how pleasant your surroundings, would become hell.
I believe Tolkien had conceived this and understood it, and didn't think the idea of immortality, or eternal life as promised by his religion, was so great. Eternal life would become unbearable the longer it went on. And in Middle-earth, the immortal elves grow weary of existence after thousands of years.
Life, our lives, human lives, have meaning and purpose because we are unique, because the odds of us (individually) being here are astronomically unimaginably small and not inevitably preordained (we each won the cosmic lottery), AND because our lives are limited (albeit too limited - give me a Numenorian lifespan any day). Since even after just 10's of thousand of years of existence it would become wearisome, boring and tedious, oblivion, eternal slumber (which for all we know of humans in the Middle-earth universe is what happens to them) IS truly a 'gift'. And yet humans in Middle-earth (as in reality) do not appreciate this. We (most people) lament the idea that we will cease to exist one day. Again that's likely because our lives are TOO short. An immortal elf surely has a different perspective on the subject. And so, they consider men's mortality a GIFT. One that was denied to the Oath breakers, who desperately desired redemption so that they might finally be allowed to die and go into oblivion (annihilation).
Personally, I'm of the mind that Tolkien, despite the expectations of his social circle and in particular those of his religion, was not particularly taken with the mythology of our universe's creation nor certain ideas put forth by his religion. And this, the ability to cease existence entirely, is one he saw as being a welcoming gift rather than the curse it has long been considered, and told to be in Genesis.