CS Lewis or JRR Tolkien

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CS Lewis’s essays are powerful and topical in a way that Tolkien is not. But the imaginative scope of Middle Earth sets the standard for all that kind of writing, including the Narnia Chronicles.
 
I think that Lewis was better as I know more about Lewis’ writings on theology (I’m not sure if Tolkien had any) and because I love the Space trilogy.
 
J.R.R. Tolkien was a Christian and a writer but not a Christian writer in the sense that C.S. Lewis was. At least I’m unaware of any books written by Tolkien about Christianity, not counting a collection of letters which I’ve seen some excerpts from dealing with religious subjects, but those were private letters not meant for publication, which were published posthumously.

I think Tolkien is superior to Lewis of course in that Tolkien was Catholic and also had a sort of greater, more layered and realistic depth to some of his fiction (especially LOTR). Tolkien’s works, again especially LOTR, have the potential to open your eyes to the world as it is meant to be seen that even Lewis’s Narnia books don’t accomplish. Also Tolkien was a huge influence on Lewis (including on Lewis’s conversion/reversion to Christianity) while I’m unaware of any particular influence in the other direction.

On the other hand I think Lewis probably had the better intellectual background and clearly he wrote far more popular books (numerically speaking, at least), both fiction and nonfiction. Also, though he had some wrong theories Lewis does not seem to have been as prone to bizzare ideas like inherited dispositions for one’s ancestors’ languages or disproportunate rejection of modern technology like Tolkien. Also Tolkien’s works are occasionally morally problematic or at least have the potential to be so, while I’m unaware of problems of the same sort in Lewis.
 
Aelred_Minor said:
Also Tolkien’s works are occasionally morally problematic or at least have the potential to be so, while I’m unaware of problems of the same sort in Lewis.
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I would agree Tolkien is the better writer overall, in the sense of having a greater creative imagination (in lyrical prose I think Lewis surpasses him). I’m curious about the morally problematic elements in his works. What did you have in mind?
 
Well I, like many, can only really compare the two in regards to their works of LOTR and Narnia. While both are qreat I do not think Narnia can compare to LOTR in regards to depth.

For fiction writting comparing C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien I prefer Tolkien. For theological writing I prefer C.S. Lewis. Of the Christian writers of the time I much prefer G.K. Chesterton. G.K. Chesterton’s theolgoical and historical writings are superb, and his primary fiction work the “Father Brown” series is better than Narnia in my opinion.

All three authors are of course very good and I would recommend all their works with the exception of some of C.S. Lewis theological works which while well written, suffer from Protestant errors.
 
mro said:
Well who’s the better Christian writer? CS Lewis or Tolkien? 😃
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CS Lewis was always the better story teller in my opinion. He added more humor and humanity to his work then Tolkien. I’m sure Tolkien was genius but when I read his stuff I can’t get into the material…I find it a bit boring and dead. When I read CS Lewis I feel I can connect with him on a human level and never get tired or reading his work. It probably comes down to personal preference though. My brother swears by Tolkien but then he’s an Athieist.
 
Aelred_Minor said:
On the other hand I think Lewis probably had the better intellectual background and clearly he wrote far more popular books (numerically speaking, at least), both fiction and nonfiction.
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Oh come now, Tolkien was a professor at Oxford too. It’s rather like questioning whether a scholar of physics vs a scholar of chemistry has a better intellectual background.
 
Question really does need more elaboration.

Lewis was a good apologist whereas you’re more likely to quote Tolkien on the study of myth than of theology. Hence, as a non-fiction writer, Lewis wins.

However, Narnia is indeed a preachy piece of work. The prose is good but the themes and cosmology are a little too kiddie now for my taste.

Tolkien however will always be held in high regard for all fantasy fan boys (such as myself). I like his prose. Middle-Earth is obviously more well constructed and explored.

That and you can recognize more fantasy tropes compared to Narnia. 😛

And seeing as how I personally prefer fiction to non-fiction, Tolkien wins for me hands down. :cool:
 
Justin_Swanton said:
I would agree Tolkien is the better writer overall, in the sense of having a greater creative imagination (in lyrical prose I think Lewis surpasses him). I’m curious about the morally problematic elements in his works. What did you have in mind?
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Those that come to mind off the top of my head:

-The idea that Frodo ultimately has permission to use the Ring, and especially the moment when he tells Gollum that if Gollum were to try to take the Ring he, Frodo, would put it on and order him to slay himself, and Gollum would have to do it. This is portrayed as a great, noble moment for Frodo but really it is positively Satanic. Not that I’m at all saying Tolkien was Satanic, but he had a definite laps of moral judgment when he wrote that passage, and there are other lesser ones along that line.

-The idea that the kings of Numenor had the power to choose the moment of their death, and so they chose to die while still in control of their minds and bodies and let their sons reign before they too began to grow old. As the Numenorians degenerated the kings began to “cling to life” even into feebleness, and this is seen as a bad thing. If I recall Aragorn appears to have had this power and did the same thing, chose to die early to avoid old age and to let his son have a longer reign.

-The casual, probably unconscious racism in his works, especially LOTR. Consider for example the black-skinned, red-tongued “troll-men” of the far South and the squint-eyed, flat-faced men who were apparently hybrids between Men and Orcs.

-Arguably, the suicides of Turin and the pregnant Nienor, and in general that whole story whose point seems to be the impossibility of avoiding fate and the triumph of evil. Perhaps Tolkien would have had something to say in defense of the story, like that it is to his corpus of works something like what the book of Ecclesiastes is to the Bible, and indeed the ethic of the story is contradicted especially by LOTR, but still taken by itself it is potentially problematic.

-Arguably, the way lives of Orcs and Trolls seem to have no intrinsic value and should be ended in principle, and that there seems to be no hint of possible redemption for them, though it could be countered that after all they are not supposed to be human or derived from humans, with the possible exception of the Uruk-hai.

-Arguably, an overly fond depiction of drunkenness.

I’m sure I’ll think of others later. Don’t get me wrong, I love Tolkien overall, but you did ask for what I thought was morally problematic in his works. Again, I’m not aware of anything close to this in Lewis, though I think Lewis was sometimes a bit too much of a Platonist.
 
Better Christian writer? I have no idea but . . . Since I don’t care for fantasy, I prefer C.S. Lewis because he also wrote non-fiction.
 
I read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in fifth grade and then read The Screwtape Letters over the summer. From what I remember, I loved The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and thought that The Screwtape Letters was alright, though I liked some of the “advice” given to Wormwood and still recite some of it to myself in prayer or Mass (mainly the parts of getting distracted).

I’ve never read Tolkien but would love to. I have seen Fellowship of the Ring once and thought it was very well done. I need to re-watch it (and the rest of the films for the first time) again soon. Maybe over Christmas break when I’m home from school. If I like them I’ll read the books. I have all three books in one volume, which makes it a good 1000 page book with not so big print. Not something I can lug around, but I may start to read it now over break.

Personally, whenever I hear a Led Zeppelin song I think of J.R.R. Tolkien and Middle Earth. It has that feel to it, especially “The Battle of Evermore” youtube.com/watch?v=4axrTFBV3cU “Ramble On” even mentions Mordor. Zeppelin makes me want to read LOTR.

Something tells me I should read Tolkien.
 
Aelred_Minor said:
Those that come to mind off the top of my head:
-Arguably, the way lives of Orcs and Trolls seem to have no intrinsic value and should be ended in principle, and that there seems to be no hint of possible redemption for them, though it could be countered that after all they are not supposed to be human or derived from humans, with the possible exception of the Uruk-hai.
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Orcs, trolls and other constitutionally evil creatures in Tolkien’s world - including the Uruk-hai - are equivalent to incarnations of damned spirits, whose wills are fixed in evil. They are part of a long (and Catholic) mythological tradition of irremediably evil beings existing in this world, not just in the next. Since we are talking mythology there is no need to ask the question: did the orcs, trolls, etc. have the chance to exercise their free-will and choose to be evil or good? They are personifications, not psychological reconstructions.
 
Justin_Swanton said:
Orcs, trolls and other constitutionally evil creatures in Tolkien’s world - including the Uruk-hai - are equivalent to incarnations of damned spirits, whose wills are fixed in evil. They are part of a long (and Catholic) mythological tradition of irremediably evil beings existing in this world, not just in the next. Since we are talking mythology there is no need to ask the question: did the orcs, trolls, etc. have the chance to exercise their free-will and choose to be evil or good? They are personifications, not psychological reconstructions.
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Not even the Ainur appear to have fixed wills. Consider Saruman’s fall and Osse’s repentance, and also Manwe’s belief in Melkor’s feigned repentance. I’ve worked out a way to reconcile these things with the idea of angelic fixed wills, via a combination of an idea in Lewis and a statement by Tolkien in The Silmarillion, but certainly the idea of fixed wills does not seem to be prominent in Tolkien. Free will is another matter- it would appear that Elves may not have it since the Great Music functions as fate for them, and if that’s so then if the Orcs were indeed bred from them (which does not appear to be certain) then it may follow that they too have no free will. This line of thinking obviously opens up new grounds for potential criticism though.
 
(name removed by moderator),

I’m interested in responding to your objections but it’s a bit much for me right now. I’ll try to get back to you sometime this week.
 
SalesianSDB said:
I read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in fifth grade and then read The Screwtape Letters over the summer. From what I remember, I loved The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and thought that The Screwtape Letters was alright, though I liked some of the “advice” given to Wormwood and still recite some of it to myself in prayer or Mass (mainly the parts of getting distracted).

I’ve never read Tolkien but would love to. I have seen Fellowship of the Ring once and thought it was very well done. I need to re-watch it (and the rest of the films for the first time) again soon. Maybe over Christmas break when I’m home from school. If I like them I’ll read the books.** I have all three books in one volume**, which makes it a good 1000 page book with not so big print. Not something I can lug around, but I may start to read it now over break.

Personally, whenever I hear a Led Zeppelin song I think of J.R.R. Tolkien and Middle Earth. It has that feel to it, especially “The Battle of Evermore” youtube.com/watch?v=4axrTFBV3cU “Ramble On” even mentions Mordor. Zeppelin makes me want to read LOTR.

Something tells me I should read Tolkien.
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This is how the book was originally meant to be. It’s not three books but a single novel divided into six “books”, which are most frequently divided into three volumes (two “books” each). From what I’ve read or seen on TV (forget which) the publisher refused to print it in one volume and pressured Tolkien to consent to have it broken up against his original desires.

Maybe that’s why the titles of the volumes aren’t that great in my opinion, not as descriptions of each volume anyway. Especially “The Two Towers” since no one, not even Tolkien himself, could definitively decide which two towers were the two. Then again you could argue the title of the whole novel is not the best either (kind of like if The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe were called The White Witch and the title character never appeard directly in person).
 
While Sauron’s will has control over the orcs they also seem to have evil wills of their own. Consider the Orcs that attacked Isildur right after their master had fallen, or the talk of the Orcs overheard by Sam about wanting to go off on their own after the war, like in the old days. Even consider their killing each other or trying to betray their Master by taking what they knew should be brought back to Him. Nazgul would not do such things, so I think it’s a lesser kind of domination of still semi-independent wills, not the total slavery of the Nazgul.

There’s also the interesting idea that the will of Morgoth continues to work in Middle-earth even after his being chained in the Void. I don’t know how direct this is meant to be though.

Anyway, if the Orcs really are still Elves I would guess they would indeed go to the Halls of Mandos and reemerge when the world is remade (or before, if they are easier to purify than Feanor). I don’t know that Tolkien would have liked that idea though.

I think the key thing to keep in mind might again be the Great Music. This apparently functions as fate for all things in the world except Men, so unless the Orcs or some of them are really Men the decisions of the Orcs would presumably be determined by one aspect or another of the Music, presumably the part of Melkor and those he corrupted. Therefore all evil would still have its origin in the decisions of free creatures (assuming the Ainur to be free in the Halls of Iluvatar), though also with its deepest origin in some sense in the will of Iluvatar and working his purposes.

The whole concept of intelligent creatures, good and bad, whose lives and therefore presumably wills are entirely determined by the thought of what are ultimately good and evil angels outside of time is difficult at best though.
 
Honestly it’s not so much time as being tired and lazy after a day of work. When/if I’m feeling up to really digging in to a difficult yet relatively trivial topic I’ll get going on this.
 
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