J.R.R. Tolkien viewed the act of writing and myth-making as a form of “sub-creation,” where a human can emulate the role of God as Creator. This theological concept is imbued everywhere in Tolkien’s writings, from The Lord of the Rings to his letters and essays, and he tied the idea of sub-creation directly to his Catholic faith. The idea of art as an emulation of God’s Creation is seen in Catholic theology from antiquity, including in such works as St. Augustine’s De Musica, and the importance of this topic is clearly seen in the Second Council of Nicaea, which ruled in favor of the legitimacy of icons being venerated for the subject they represent. This idea of sub-creation is not a mere relic of the past, but a living component of the Catholic faith given new life by the Great Philologist.
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) is best known as the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and has some popular renown as a linguist and philologist, but is largely overlooked as a theologian and philosopher. Drawing on his devout Catholic faith, deep views of morality and theology are present in his works, with many of these views dating back millenia to Christian beliefs in antiquity. The idea of sub-creation is central to all of Tolkien’s writings. As Tolkien states in a unsent letter to bookshop owner Peter Hastings from 1954, “Since the whole matter [of The Lord of the Rings] from beginning to end is mainly concerned with the relation of Creation to making and sub-creation (and subsidiarily with the related matter of ‘morality’), it must be clear that references to these things are not casual, but fundamental.” This theme is fundamental to Tolkien’s writings because it is fundamental to his understanding of God.
As Dr. Austin Freeman notes in his book Tolkien Dogmatics, which discusses Tolkien’s theological beliefs, “God’s absolute right to rule stems from his role as the sole creator of all that exists. As creator and ruler, God institutes a natural law in both senses: the law of nature, against which it is impossible to rebel, and a moral law inherent in the universe.” God, being the first Creator of everything, is necessarily outside of time and space, with time and space being created by Him. In Christian theology, humans are a special part of that all-encompassing Creation, being made in the image and likeness of God, and all of our creative ability both comes from Him and should be used to pay tribute to Him. In this way, humans become sub-creators; being made in the image and likeness of God the Creator, we can use our God-given abilities to create beautiful things within His Creation.
Tolkien believed that people have an inherent desire to participate in this sub-creation, wanting to emulate their Creator. This desire is most fully realized in the sub-creation of fantasy, as Tolkien states in his essay “On Fairy-Stories,” “Fantasy…is, I think, not a lower but a higher form of Art, indeed the most nearly pure form, and so (when achieved) the most potent.” Because fantasy is centered around the creation of a fictional world, humans can best emulate the goodness of God in his Creation of the real world. This emulation is achieved through the use of language, which Tolkien describes as “an enchanter’s power.”
Humans are able to use the power of language to abstract from reality and create something that does not actually exist, as Tolkien states, “We may put a deadly green upon a man’s face and produce a horror; we may make the rare and terrible blue moon to shine; or we may cause woods to spring with silver leaves and rams to wear fleeces of gold, and put hot fire into the belly of the cold worm. But in such ‘fantasy,’ as it is called, new form is made; Faërie begins; Man becomes a sub-creator.” Just as people are able to instantly create new form with their words, so too did God in the beginning with just a statement: “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” Sub-creation is always pointing towards something more, always designed to glorify God’s creation in the same way that the role of the human artist points towards the higher role of God as the Creator of all.
This emulation of God through language can be seen to an even greater extent in the very nature of human language. It is not just in describing fictional worlds that man can be like God the Creator, but even in everyday speech. God, having existed before the Creation of the universe and of time itself is understood as being outside of time and space entirely. He is not within this world, but something beyond, not bound by physical location and passing seconds as we are. However, language, if only for a moment, if only in our words, can let us go beyond the current time and place. Humans are able to use language to “abstract,” or talk about things that are not currently here in front of us. We are not bound to just describe what we immediately see in front of us, but can describe events that happened 2,000 years ago, imagine futures even more distant than that, and fashion things that will never exist by the use of the abstracting power of language. Language, in this sub-creative way, lets us step beyond our current time and place, and in a very mundane and routine way, be the image of God, who is eternally beyond time and space.
Fantasy, through this special power of language, allows for true theological and moral concepts to shine through into a fictional world. This idea of truth is vital to the concept of sub-creation. Tolkien was no stranger to the pejorative connotations of the word “fantasy.” To Tolkien, fantasy was not mere escapism or a playful way of ignoring the real world, but something that can shed light on truth. He criticizes those who think of fantasy as escapism, stating, “Many people dislike being ‘arrested.’ They dislike any meddling with the Primary World, or such small glimpses of it as are familiar to them. They, therefore, stupidly and even maliciously confound Fantasy with Dreaming, in which there is no Art; and with mental disorders, in which there is not even control: with delusion and hallucination.” Fantasy is not a toy nor a mindless hobby; it is something with a definite purpose, something that can evoke deep feelings within us, deep feelings of real, underlying truth.
Tolkien describes this notion as such, stating, “The peculiar quality of the ‘joy’ in successful fantasy can thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth. It is not only a ‘consolation’ for the sorrow of this world, but a satisfaction, and an answer to that question, ‘Is it true?’...it may be a far-off gleam or echo of the evangelium in the real world.” Tolkien viewed all people as seeking the truth, and successful fantasy as that which can satisfy that desire. While fantasy may not be “real” in that it does not literally describe the physical world, it can go beyond our physical world to point to very real concepts in a way that no other medium can.
But what is that underlying reality? What is the evangelium, or “good news” that successful fantasy echoes? According to Tolkien, it is none other than the story of Jesus Christ, the most important fairy-story of them all. He states,
“The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories…But this story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation…There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many sceptical men have accepted as true on its own merits.”
This the fulfillment of Tolkien’s idea of sub-creation. The Gospels do not tell fiction, but a very real story of the salvation of mankind. In Jesus Christ, the Creator dwelt within His Creation, and even died within it. God, the Author of All, became part of His story in the most direct way possible, becoming human and dying on the cross. This is why The Lord of the Rings is at its heart about the relation of Creation to sub-creation; all successful fantasy is. All good art points to the glory of God, and in our very words and writings, we reflect His creative power.
While articulated beautifully and uniquely by Tolkien, this is not a new concept in Catholic theology, being present even in antiquity. St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430 A.D.) is one of the earliest Christian theologians to discuss the role and nature of art, which he does primarily in his De Musica. This work is a dialogue that is largely concerned with descriptions of meter and the rhythmic ordering of music, but St. Augustine does also elaborate certain thoughts on what the purpose of music and art truly is. Speaking on why he has written such a long discussion on the topic of rhythm, St. Augustine states,
“It ought to be undertaken so adolescents, or men of any age God has endowed with a good natural capacity, might with reason guiding be torn away, not quickly but gradually, from the fleshly senses and letters it is difficult for them not to stick to, and adhere with the love of unchangeable truth to one God and Master of all things who with no mean term whatsoever directs human minds.”
St. Augustine is here describing a very similar principle to Tolkien’s; God has endowed humans with a capacity for creation, and we ought to use this capacity to be guided and guide others away from worldly desire and instead pursue the truth of God. Music, and art as a whole, are a God-given capability by which we can give greater glory to God. We are not to use music to escape from what is real and what is true, but to use music in a way that points to the unchangeable truth of God.
In late antiquity, the theological nature of art became a topic of division among Christians. In the eighth century, a dispute arose regarding the veneration of depictions of saints and God, with some sects of Christians believing that this practice was idolatry, which is the act of worshiping an image itself, rather than venerating the person depicted within the image. This led to the “iconoclasm crisis,” in which images were removed from churches, and those who venerated them were persecuted by Emperor Constantine V (r. 741–775 A.D.).
This event was the impetus for the Second Council of Nicaea, which was convened in 787 A.D. The Council decreed that the veneration of images is allowed and encouraged, stating, “the production of representational art…is quite in harmony with the history of the spread of the gospel, as it provides confirmation that the becoming man of the Word of God was real and not just imaginary, and as it brings us a similar benefit. For, things that mutually illustrate one another undoubtedly possess one another’s message.” The Council here draws a direct comparison between the Incarnation of Christ and the creation of images. Just as God could come into the physical world, so too can we now create physical images to represent that concept. Art allows us to represent that which we cannot see.
This is the same idea adopted by Tolkien, particularly in his elevation of fantasy as a high art form. Fantasy does not directly depict God, but can contain the moral truths given to us by God while emulating His Creation, just as images of saints or Jesus are not Christ Himself, but can lead us to Him. In this decree, one can also find an echo of Tolkien’s later idea of God the Author entering His Creation in the great fairy-story of the Gospels. This is that same union of Creation and sub-creation, the story entering history. The evangelium of Jesus Christ is here compared to the product of the artist, a concept related nearly 1200 years later by Tolkien.
While this deep theology of art certainly dates back millenia, it should not be dismissed as a long-gone idea of Christian thought. On the contrary, it is still very much alive, as seen very clearly in St. Pope John Paul II’s 1999 “Letter to Artists.” This letter begins with a clear echo of Tolkien’s sub-creation, stating, “None can sense more deeply than you artists, ingenious creators of beauty that you are, something of the pathos with which God at the dawn of creation looked upon the work of his hands.” Here once more is an indication of the ability of artists to work in the image and likeness of God. The artist does not merely try to make beautiful images, but attempts to emulate the greatest Creation of all. St. Pope John Paul II also states, “Every genuine artistic intuition goes beyond what the senses perceive and, reaching beneath reality's surface, strives to interpret its hidden mystery.” Here again, the pope describes an idea very much present within Tolkien’s concept of fantasy. Fantasy does not just depict the surface of reality, but attempts to satisfy the question of truth at the heart of it.
Within this letter are also buried similar ideas to those of Tolkien on language, as St. Pope John Paul II states:
“In order to communicate the message entrusted to her by Christ, the Church needs art. Art must make perceptible, and as far as possible attractive, the world of the spirit, of the invisible, of God. It must therefore translate into meaningful terms that which is in itself ineffable. Art has a unique capacity to take one or other facet of the message and translate it into colours, shapes and sounds which nourish the intuition of those who look or listen. It does so without emptying the message itself of its transcendent value and its aura of mystery.”
Here that incredible ability of language is described (although here art is described more generally). This is the ability to take what is unknowable, what is beyond human ability, and to translate it into words that reflect and point to God as Creator, with us humans as sub-creators. We can go beyond the physical and use our abstractive powers to point to what is eternally true. We are able to always point to God in art, word, and fantasy.
Tolkien’s theology of sub-creation is therefore seen even in early Christianity and adapted and affirmed throughout many centuries, and it is still held as a piece of Catholic thought in documents as recent as the 1999 “Letter to Artists.” Perhaps this is why Tolkien’s writings have drawn the love and adoration of so many people since the publication of The Hobbit in 1937. Tolkien did not write to distract people from reality. He wrote to draw people closer to it.