This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
- "Eru (the biblical monotheistic God) creates the template of the Universe and its history via the "Great Music", while the Valar and Maiar (angels) effect the physical act creation. "
- How very Mormon this is. Elaboration: Mormon creation theology states that Heavenly Father laid the template, and then passed the actual physical work of creation on to Christ and all the others of us.
- Tolkien was a strong Roman Catholic (a religion with a strong all powerful omnipotent God), but he spent his life loving and studying Scandinavian myths (which has a big pantheon of individual bickering gods). And the above is how he compromised. On a tangent, I doubt Tolkien would have know much about Mormonism, also, his Valar differ from the Mormon angels in that they are each distinct characters with individual areas of specialization (e.g. Aule for is the patron of craftsmaship, Mandos is responsible for the dead...)
- This is Applicability at work here. The point of that isn't what Tolkien thought what it meant to him but more like what the reader think it is.
