Tolkien Understood That Creation Is a Song

What Is Creation?

What is creation? If asked, many Christians would start listing things that populate our world: birds and bees, lizards and longhorns, fields and forests. Large things like mountains and oceans certainly come to mind. We’d think of the earth and, beyond that, the dancing spheres and burning stars within the great expanse. Eventually we’d think of ourselves and perhaps even our invisible neighbors, the angels and spirits. All of these answers are true, of course, but they don’t so much answer the question as restate it. Examples of creatures don’t help us define creation itself. So, again, what makes all of these things creation? The short answer is that they’re all part of the Creator’s song.

J. R. R. Tolkien understood that creation is song. Consider his creation myth for the world in which he would place Middle-Earth, found in The Silmarillion. Tolkien depicts the Creator, Ilúvatar, forging the world’s existence through the music of his angels, the Ainur. Ilúvatar teaches them how to sing and eventually teaches them a “great theme” so they can “make in harmony together a Great Music” kindled by “Imperishable Flame.” As the Ainur sing Ilúvatar’s theme, writes Tolkien, “a sound arose of endless interchanging melodies woven into harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the places of the dwelling of Ilúvatar were filled to overflowing, and the music went out into the Void, and it was not void.” The result: “Great beauty has been wakened into song.”¹

Creation

Tyler R. Wittman

This volume in the Short Studies in Systematic Theology series explores the doctrine of creation, inviting readers to delight in the Creator and respond in worship.

However, the mightiest of the Ainur, Melkor, soon devises his own additions to this flawless song.

As the theme progressed, it came into the heart of Melkor to interweave matters of his own imagining that were not in accord with the theme of Ilúvatar; for he sought therein to increase the power and glory of the part assigned to himself. . . . Some of these thoughts he now wove into his music, and straightway discord arose about him, and many that sang nigh him grew despondent, and their thought was disturbed and their music faltered; but some began to attune their music to his rather than to the thought which they had at first.

Melkor’s discordant variation spreads until Ilúvatar introduces a “new theme . . . like and yet unlike to the former theme, and it gathered power and had new beauty.”²

Eventually, Ilúvatar overtakes Melkor’s music by weaving his own new themes into the chaos, resolving its sorrow and ugliness by subsuming them as counterpoints in a theme of unforeseen harmony, beauty, and strength. Melkor’s music is ultimately undone because it is loud, vain, and repetitive and, writes Tolkien, “had little harmony, but rather a clamorous unison as of many trumpets braying upon a few notes.”³ It loses out because it lacks beauty.

The “Song” Metaphor in Christian Tradition

Tolkien’s myth is evocative and draws upon his own Christian tradition. Anticipating Ilúvatar’s “new theme,” Clement of Alexandria speaks of Christ as the “new song” bearing God’s name, a “Levitical song,” which is to say, the fulfilment of the music of the Levites, whom David appointed to sing during worship (cf. 1 Chron. 6:31–48) and who bore God’s name on their foreheads (Ex. 28:36–38).⁴ Clement uses this metaphor to contrast Christian worship and rituals with their opposite, pagan forms. Though Greek myth spoke of Orpheus, who would tame wild animals with his music, Jesus tames the wildest of animals, sinful humans. Clement writes: “See how mighty is the new song! It has made men out of stones and men out of wild beasts.”⁵ Christ’s new song is powerful and always has been. Because David sang prophetically of this new song, his music frightened away harmful spirits (1 Sam. 16:23). Clement continues to argue that Jesus, the Word through whom all things were made (John 1:3), also “composed the entire creation into melodious order, and tuned into concert the discord of the elements, that the whole universe might be in harmony with it.”⁶ The Word is therefore not only the content of the “new song” but the secret of the original “pure song,” who created all things “in accordance with the fatherly purpose of God.”⁷ Clement understands that God’s works, from the beginning of all things to their consummation, have a musical quality: The “new song” of redemption presupposes the “pure song” of creation, both of which are centered on the Word, the Son, Jesus Christ.

Clement’s use of the “song” metaphor follows Scripture’s lead, if we pay careful attention. In John’s vision of heavenly worship in the book of Revelation, the angels sing a “new song” about the mystery of Christ’s work:

Worthy are you to take the scroll
     and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed
     people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation,
and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
     and they shall reign on the earth. (Rev. 5:9–10; cf. Rev. 14:3)

This angelic song recalls a theme throughout the Psalms, where Israel is summoned to sing a “new song” of thanksgiving for something God has done, such as rescuing his people or intervening to bring about a new state of affairs.⁸ Whenever God’s people sing a “new song,” they’re singing of God’s mighty works on their behalf. And importantly, they’re singing about things that anticipate the future fulfillment of God’s promises. Therefore, such new songs anticipate Christ, in whom all God’s promises are “Yes and Amen” (2 Cor. 1:20).

Whenever God’s people sing a “new song,” they’re singing of God’s mighty works on their behalf.

While this theme of a “new song” throughout Scripture looks forward to the fulfillment of God’s promises, it also looks backward to God’s mighty works in the past, the first of which is creation. In Revelation, the angels sing their “new song” against the background of a song that praises God’s work of creation:

Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
     to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
     and by your will they existed and were created. (Rev. 4:11; cf. Job 38:7)

The new song about redemption follows the first song about creation. Indeed, what makes the new song “new” is the new creation Christ inaugurates: “Behold, I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:5); “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17; cf. Gal. 6:15). Just as the new creation presupposes the original creation, the new song presupposes an original one.

It is no minor detail that the angels sing these songs in heaven in response to God’s mighty works. Notice how their song is responsive, much like a liturgical chant. And in many Christian churches, liturgical chants respond to chants. So Christian tradition has a place for understanding God’s act of creating to be songlike, since it elicits responsive acts of singing. Of course, this is all metaphor, and it doesn’t line up with Tolkien’s account in every detail—he would not have wanted it so and neither do we. But metaphors help shape our imagination and understanding of things.⁹ The metaphor of “song” is not only biblical but also, for that very reason, uniquely suited to help us understand the world, ourselves, and all that’s around us as God’s creation.

Creation is sung reality, full of beauty that can be experienced when its harmonies and resolutions are heard. But it has strange notes in it as well. Adam was born into a world of fallen angels, whose chaos intruded into Eden’s peace. And creation has stranger notes still. A new song has emerged within the original, drawing it all into one grand symphony whose final movement has not yet finished. Choirs of angels, humans, and other creatures hymn the Creator’s glory and wait for his music to bring everything to its rest. The glory and the weight of created life is whether we will wager our voices against the Creator or respond to his song with eternal harmonies.

This article is adapted from Creation: An Introduction by Tyler R. Wittman.

Tyler Wittman (PhD, University of St. Andrews) is associate professor of theology at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the author of the book God and Creation in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth and a variety of journal articles. Tyler and his wife, Jessie, have four children.

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