The philosophic depths of Tolkein, Dostoevsky

Paul Tuns, Review:

The Two Greatest Novels Ever Written: The Wisdom of The Lord of the Rings and The Brothers Karamazov by Peter Kreeft (Word on Fire, $24.95 USD, 164 pages)

Philosopher Peter Kreeft says that J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) and Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov (BK) are not merely masterpieces but the two greatest novels ever written because they “brilliantly illuminate” life and deaths issues, they are lights to see Christian truths about the most important issues. In that way, fiction can be truer than fact.

The issues illuminated by these novels include good and evil, courage and heroism, humility, justice, faith, hope, and charity, although they are addressed or alluded to in vastly different ways. Tolkien situated Middle Earth as a premodern, pre-Christian society in which Christian truth is in the background; Dostoevsky’s cast of characters struggle overtly with Christian themes and an Orthodox monk, Father Zosima. Kreeft argues LOTR is “sacramental” while BK is “psychological” but both novels “show us strikingly similar truths about ourselves, our world, and our lives.”

Kreeft divides his book into two topics: evil and good. He argues that “all stories are about some kind of evil.” Although God is not mentioned in LOTR he is present, with Tolkien explaining in his correspondence that the book is “about God, and His sole right to divine honour,” to which Sauron has no right. Kreeft use BK’s conversation between Ivan, the middle brother, and Alyosha, the youngest, to delve into the case for God through the Redeemer Son who forgives rather than the omnipotent God the Father, noting “it is easy for an atheist to attack the person who created it all and is not incarnate, but much harder to attack the person who came and suffered and died out of love for us.”

Kreeft says that in both LOTR and BK the attraction to evil is the desire for power or control, “my will be done” not “thy will be done.” The father, Fyodor Karamazov, Kreeft says, “worships three gods: the pleasure of sex, the power of money, and himself.” LOTR, being premodern, “is not obsessed with sex” but instead the main issue is pride (versus humility).

Kreeft says that all three protagonists in LOTR (Aragon, Gandolf, Frodo) are like Christ in that they each sacrifice their lives (though in different ways), exemplars that show we are all called to give up our selves for the sake of justice, which is giving each what is their due, including God. Kreeft says that “deep hope” which stirs man (and hobbits) to heroic action and genuine faith comes after the death of “ordinary hope,” with both books being literary proof that it darkest before the dawn. Kreeft says “at the end of both novels this deep hope is validated.”

Read original article