The valar are not polytheistic divinities but subordinate beings that Ilúvatar has created with the Flame Imperishable of his own Spirit.Īs patrons over the various creative qualities and natural powers resident in the cosmos, the valar are pure spirits, having no natural bodily existence and thus no mortal limits. Just as in Genesis, Yahweh creates in concert with his heavenly court ('Let us make man in our image'), so does Ilúvatar employ his 15 valar in making the music of the cosmos. There is nothing that does not bear Ilúvatar’s creative imprint. In The Silmarillion, he is called Ilúvatar, the all-Father, and he has imbued the entire cosmos with his Spirit. The inhabitants of Middle-earth do not know God as triune, but they do know him as the One. Rather than fleeing oppressive evil, Tolkien enables his readers to escape into the freeing reality of Good. He also confronts evils altogether as great as the horrors of our own time. Like the anonymous seventh-century author of Beowulf whose work he had mastered, Tolkien infuses his pre-Christian epic fantasy with Christian convictions and concerns. TOLKIEN’S The Lord of the Rings is a profoundly Christian book.