The boy has been reading The Silmarillion lately. It’s a bit above his reading level, but he’s getting bits and pieces of it. He’ll probably want to read it again when he’s 16, and again when he’s 25, but parts of it will stick now. I’m not reading it with him, but I did pick up and glance over the first few pages. What I found just about put me on my knees. If he forgets everything else, I will make sure he remembers Tolkien’s cosmic creation myth.

In brief: the self-existent, omnipotent Eru, in Elvish called Illuvatar (by Zach called Elevator, until I corrected him–you know how it goes, pronouncing weird names in a book you’re reading to yourself), first created a race of angelic beings called the Ainur. The Ainur made music for the sake of Iluvatar as it was given to them by him to sing. Initially each of them propounded unique musical themes, elucidating the one aspect of the being of Iluvatar that it was given to him to understand. Eventually Iluvatar called them together and revealed a single harmonious theme to them, which was greater than anything the Ainur had individually conceived beforehand. As they sang it, “a sound arose of endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the places of the dwelling of Iluvatar were filled to overflowing, and the music and the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not void.” Acting as Iluvatar’s agents, the Ainur sang Creation according to the themes ordained by him.

It went well for a while, and it was initially as perfect as Eru had conceived. Eventually, however, the most powerful and wisest of the Ainur decided to sing a song of his own devising. Melkor was impatient for the creative work of Iluvatar to be completed, and he wanted his own role in it to be greater and more glorious that Iluvatar had allowed. The perfectly harmonious music of the Ainur was eventually disrupted, with some others deciding to follow the lead of the rebellious Melkor. This gave rise to open conflict between the wide, beautiful, slow, and sorrowful Music of Iluvatar and the loud, vain, repetitive, braying music of Melkor. It ended with Iluvatar playing a single, terrible chord, “deper than the Abyss, higher than the Firmament, piercing as the light of the eye of Iluvatar.” Then the Music ceased, and Iluvatar spoke, saying:

Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them is Melkor; but that he may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Iluvatar, those things that ye have sung, I will show them forth, that ye may see what ye have done. And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.

That quote is as worth committing to memory as any literature outside the canon of Scripture. If anyone is aware of a more beautiful, more concise parable proposing an essentially Christian answer the question of evil, let me know.

I doubt you do.

• 
• Posted by Tim on Wednesday, July 14, 2004 at 8:08:34 am PDT
• Category: Theology
• Comment RSS Feed