The role of Providence in The Lord of the Rings

Through fits and starts, I have been very slowly working my way through my first real reading (as distinct from skimming and jumping) of The Lord of the Rings, a book in which, despite much that annoys me and doesn’t work for me, I find so much of value that I’ve decided to stick it out to the end. I am now about a third of the way through the second volume.

I had a thought about LOTR which I sent to Bill Carpenter, a VFR reader who knows Tolkien well, and which I think may be of interest to Tolkien fans:

Bill,

I’ve discovered something about LOTR that I don’t know if anyone has noticed before. On p. 94 in vol. I, Gandalf demonstrates that Frodo does not have the will to destroy the Ring. Frodo had asked why the Ring can’t be simply destroyed or thrown away, and Gandalf tells him to throw it in the fire. Frodo tries, but can’t make himself do it, because the Ring exerts such a hold on him. Gandalf then says that the Ring can only be destroyed in Mount Doom. Later, at the Council of Elrond, Frodo volunteers to take the Ring to Mount Doom and drop it in the Cracks of Doom, and Elrond consents to this and the Fellowship of the Ring is formed to accompany Frodo along his way. But none of the characters point out the obvious: if Frodo was unwilling to throw the Ring into his own fireplace, how will he be able to throw it into the Cracks of Doom? No one in the story notices this problem; everyone assumes that when Frodo gets to the Cracks of Doom he will be able to throw in the Ring.

And of course, when he does get there, the power of the Ring takes him over and he refuses to destroy the Ring and instead puts it on his own finger. Utter disaster. But then Smeagol attacks him, struggles with him, bites off his finger with the Ring, then dances in triumph at the edge of the cliff and falls into the Cracks of Doom, destroying the Ring and saving the world.

The point is that no one, not Frodo, not any person, could have voluntarily destroyed the Ring; it could only be destroyed by a providential accident or act of madness.

But here’s the real twist: If Gandalf and Frodo and the other characters had thought logically through the problem and realized that it would be impossible for Frodo or anyone to destroy the Ring voluntarily, they would have concluded that there was no way to get rid of the Ring. They would have given up in despair, and the world would have been conquered by Sauron. But because no one thought clearly through the problem, Frodo and Sam proceeded with the Quest. They manage to get the Ring to the Cracks of Doom, which no one else could have done; no one but Frodo could have carried the Ring without being taken over by it, and no one but Sam could have helped Frodo through the worst spots. It is a heroic achievement. But at the last moment Frodo fails disastrously, dooming the whole world. Then it is only the purely providential mad act of Smeagol in seizing the Ring from Frodo, dancing in heedless ecstasy, and falling into the flames, that saves the world.

Also, this makes sense of Frodo and Sam’s seemingly wrongheaded and dangerous decision not to kill Smeagol, which by any rational and moral calculus they had the right and duty to do. Something keeps them from killing him. In the end, that something turns out to be the very Fate that enables the Quest to succeed and the world to be saved. The world is saved by the mad greed of the little monster Smeagol. If Frodo and Sam had killed Smeagol, the Ring would not have been destroyed and Sauron would have conquered the world.

So Tolkien is saying, we don’t of ourselves have the ability to complete what we set out to do. Other things, even perhaps evil forces or evil people like Smeagol, must help us along unexpectedly at some points. If we thought logically beforehand about all the things we had to do, the job would seem impossible and we would be paralyzed and couldn’t do anything. We must therefore start moving toward our goal, no matter how impossible it seems, and have the faith that our very effort to get to the goal will generate providential agencies to help us complete our task.

Of course, I’m jumping the gun with this theory, not having read the whole book. But I think I’ve read enough to suggest this idea.

Bill Carpenter replied:

Lawrence,

I’d say you’ve completely grasped the most important theme of the book. That Tolkien’s theme is Providence, and that only Providence can complete our designs, is widely recognized. Gandalf’s reproach of Frodo for regretting that Bilbo had not killed Gollum is even highlighted in the movie. However, I have never known anyone to observe that Frodo had already proven he could not destroy the Ring before he volunteered to take it to Mordor. It would not surprise me to learn that Tolkien did not know exactly how the Quest would end at the time of the Council of Elrond. Still, Frodo had shown a vulnerability to the Ring both at Bag-End (the cul de sac) and on Weathertop, where he put it on (if memory serves) and revealed himself to the Ringwraiths. So it was blind of Gandalf and Elrond not to object to Frodo as their emissary based on his proven incapacity. Thanks for adding to my appreciation of the book.

Gandalf is the closest thing to an agent of Providence, yet he is not all-knowing or all-powerful. He reveres the secret and miraculous workings of Providence, he just doesn’t know them all. You are dead on about Gollum—the miserable little maddened monster, the incarnation of human degradation, plays his role in fighting evil in spite of, yet also by virtue of, his enslavement to it. I have a friend who thinks he is the most important character in the book. He incarnates sin and the place of sin in our life. He is not redeemed; there is a Hell. But he serves to redeem others.

I don’t think there is anything more important to get out of the book than this unfolding of Providence. It is also English Christian orthodoxy: “There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we may.” Or in Milton, where God is portrayed as bringing good out of evil, and Satan as attempting to turn all good into evil. You have touched in posts last year on our duty to seek to align ourselves with God’s will. To discover it, and do it, is our task, but our knowledge and ability are both limited. I suspect that the discipline of seeking and recognizing Providence as the shape of history is an important aspect of discovering and doing His will. Job is an indispensable book for this, though all of Biblical history provides the template in its large scope and detail. To believe that God whacks you and beats on you and rewards you for a reason is to believe that what you do and suffer is significant in a context of significance.

The opening pages of Silmarillion present the Creator’s music as a continuously created song that incorporates jarring notes into new harmony, a metaphor for Providential history.

Best wishes,
Bill

I wrote back:

Bill, thanks very much for this thoughtful reply.

I think I would disagree only on a secondary point, when you equate Providence with God’s will. It seems to me that Providence, at least when we’re speaking of Providence in terms of the evil acts of a character like Smeagol, is closer to what a Christian writer has described as God’s purpose, which he distinguishes from God’s will. For example, it is certainly not God’s will that Jacob’s brothers sell him into slavery; it is a terrible crime. Yet is it God’s providential purpose that they do so, since, by their doing so, Joseph becomes the ruler of Egypt and ultimately saves their lives, saves the heritage of Israel, and demonstrates God’s forgiveness.

Howard Sutherland adds:

I just read your Tolkien exchange. You spotted a seeming contradiction everyone else seems to have missed. Despite having read The Lord of the Rings several times since 1967 I never noticed it. I think there may be an answer, or maybe Tolkien just missed the discrepancy. You are also right that what Mr. Carpenter (and others) have called the workings out of Providence in LOTR is better described as God’s purpose than His will given the roles evil beings play in bringing it about.

Back to the seeming contradiction. Tolkien must have been aware of Lord Acton’s dictum about power. The only hope of destroying the one ring was to cast it into the fire where it was forged. To have any chance of defeating Sauron, someone had to take it there. Frodo was susceptible to its power and might have proved unable to destroy it once he got it to the mountain, as indeed he did. As a relatively powerless moral agent, though, Frodo was less susceptible to the ring than those who were powerful already. Gandalf and Elrond, and Galadriel later, make that point when they refuse to bear the ring themselves. For them, it is perilous in the extreme to hold or even look at it. No matter how good they are, given the love of power they have gained through having power, the temptation to turn from the quest, to use the ring to fight Sauron, would have been irresistible. In that way they would have been caught, and would have done Sauron’s will in the end. Saruman, more powerful than Gandalf, was seduced even without the ring.

To use Acton’s terms, having power made the wise more corruptible than hobbits. Bearing the ring, Gandalf, Elrond or Galadriel could not have resisted wielding its evil power in a vain attempt to do good. That taste of absolute power (illusory though it was) would have corrupted them absolutely. Fortunately, the wise had the wisdom not to take the ring. Nevertheless, someone had to take the ring and carry it to the mountain. The last, best hope was to choose the bearer who seemed least susceptible and trust to Providence (have faith, in other words) that he would find the assistance—in whatever form—he would need to get to the mountain and destroy the evil. And so he did. It was a slight hope and needed much faith, but in the end the good reap the reward of not abandoning those virtues. Likewise the reward of charity, in that Bilbo’s sparing Gollum long before kept Gollum available to play his indispensable role. So sending Frodo, who could not even toss the ring into his fireplace, to cast it into the Cracks of Doom was a long shot indeed, but the good guys’ best shot. The faith and hope needed to take that long shot were rewarded.

Those involved in the quest who lose faith (Boromir) or hope (Denethor) die. Those who keep both (Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, the hobbits) live to see the victory.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 14, 2005 01:30 PM | Send