The Flame Imperishable: Tolkien, St. Thomas, and the Metaphysics of Faerie by McIntosh Jonathan S

Author:McIntosh, Jonathan S. [McIntosh, Jonathan S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Angelico Press
Published: 2018-01-07T16:00:00+00:00

And so it was that as this vision of the World was played before them, the Ainur saw that it contained things which they had not thought. And they saw with amazement the coming of the Children of Ilúvatar, and the habitation that was prepared for them; and they perceived that they themselves in the labour of their music had been busy with the preparation of this dwelling, and yet knew not that it had any purpose beyond its own beauty. (S 18)

Not only does the Vision, then, contain “all those things” that the Ainur “devised or added” in the Music, it also contains “things which they had not thought” in the Music.

There are a number of distinguishable dimensions to the Vision’s superiority over the Music, one of which is the Vision’s increased theological or divinely revelatory character. Although the Music itself had been a means by which the Ainur could grow in their knowledge of Ilúvatar, in the foreknowledge of the Children of Ilúvatar afforded in the Vision, by contrast, the Ainur are said to be able to see “the mind of Ilúvatar reflected anew, and learned yet a little more of his wisdom, which otherwise had been hidden even from the Ainur” (S 18). Through the Vision, in short, the Ainur receive a greater revelation of the Creator than what the Music alone had provided. 57 Related to this is the greater theodical power the Vision also wields in comparison to the Music, providing the Ainur with a greater disclosure of Ilúvatar’s ability to bring about good from Melkor’s evil. In the Ainur’s Music, to be sure, the Ainur witnessed “the most triumphant notes” of Melkor’s rebellious music being continually taken up by Eru’s music “and woven into its own solemn pattern” (S 17). 58 Yet it is in the Vision that the Ainur first experience in a concrete way the Creator’s power to subvert and transform Melkor’s corrupted themes. As Ilúvatar explains to Melkor in particular after the closing of the Music, in the Vision he will

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