Author: Ralph C. WOOD, University Professor of Theology and Literature, Baylor University, USA.
Abstract:
It is a mistake to read Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings as if it were a Manichean book, as Tom Shippey does. Tolkien repudiates this ancient heresy that good and evil are equally powerful, that one can never fully triumph over the other, indeed, that they are necessary for each other. On the contrary, Tolkien follows Augustine in showing that evil is privatio boni, a privation of the Good. In itself, evil is nothing, an emptiness, a vacancy, a total lack of substance. It is a parasite that lives off its host, the Good. It twists all things right and true and beautiful into terrible perversions of themselves. As such, evil accomplishes horrific personal and social evils. It dominates the will of those who possess it, until it finally devours them. Ilúvatar, the god-figure in the book, refuses to crush such evil by brute force. On the contrary, he uses the seemingly weak things of the world to destroy the One Ruling Ring of oppression: the Pity that repudiates all revenge; the faithful friendship of the Nine Walkers; their refusal to employ the violence and coercion of the Enemy, lest in so doing they become the Enemy.
Keywords:
Manichean, Augustinian, privatio boni, Tolkien, Tom Shippey
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