A humdinger. Wonderful exposition of the roots of the thought of Tolkien and Lewis as well.

“We all, like Frodo, carry a Quest, a Task: our daily duties. They come to us, not from us. We are free only to accept or refuse our task- and, implicitly, our Taskmaster. None of us is a free creator or designer of his own life. "None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself" (Rom 14:7). Either God, or fate, or meaningless chance has laid upon each of us a Task, a Quest, which we would not have chosen for ourselves. We are all Hobbits who love our Shire, or security, our creature comforts, whether these are pipeweed, mushrooms, five meals a day, and local gossip, or Starbucks coffees, recreational sex, and politics. But something, some authority not named in The Lord of the Rings (but named in the Silmarillion), has decreed that a Quest should interrupt this delightful Epicurean garden and send us on an odyssey. We are plucked out of our Hobbit holes and plunked down onto a Road.”
-Peter Kreeft

“Thomas Howard calls good fantasy a "flight to reality" because, though its details are fictional, the nature of its world, its universal principles and values, are true. Tolkien shows us the nature of the real world by his fantasy.”



“The most fundamental Christian symbol is the Cross. This also is perfectly opposite to the Ring. The Cross gives life; the Ring takes it. The Cross gives you death, not power; the Ring gives you power even over death. The Ring squeezes everything into its inner emptiness; the Cross expands in all four directions, gives itself to the emptiness, filling it with its blood, its life.”

I love exploring the mind of this master storyteller. Obviously, Peter Kreeft feels the same way. He looks at the thoughts behind the story as only a philosopher can. I have read many of Peter Kreeft's works, and loved them all. This book combined two loves--philosophy and the beautiful mythology the Tolkien's ring cycle.

A really delightful intellectual and spiritual romp. The book is organized around fifty philosophical questions and explores them through Tolkien's works and the works of other popular Christian writers like C.S. Lewis. Peter Kreeft's insights into both Tolkien and life are very thorough and penetrating.

The best part of the book is Kreeft's smooth, clear, and humble prose that can explain complex ethical and theological ideas. Kreeft's kindness comes across in his writing and that is what makes it so accessible. The worst part is that he often relies on quoting other writers more than he should, especially the aforementioned C.S. Lewis. While Lewis is obviously a genius reading so many excerpts from his books makes me wish I was just reading him instead of Kreeft, which is a shame because Kreeft is just so good.

Some quotes:
"Pride always includes the self-deception of self-righteousness. The lowest of all moral states believes it is the highest. The more this wrong dominates you, the more passionately do you insist that you are in the right (...) This is the philosophy of pride: my way or the highway, my will or nothing. It is the philosophy of the totally spoiled child. It is the philosophy of those on their way to Hell".

"Virtues can be classified in many ways. One way is "hard" versus "soft". Our ancestors were better at the "hard" ones, like courage, duty, honour, chastity, and obedience. We are better at the "soft" ones, like pity, mercy, sensitivity, and humility. We are shocked by their cruelty; they would be equally shocked by our laxity"

"There is first, an epistemological argument [against Utilitarianism]. It is the simple fact that we do not know the future. We are not God"

"What passes for reasoning is often rationalizing, and our deeper reason knows it. Moral absolutism is not arrogant but humble. It claims absolute status for principles, not for our knowledge of them. It is moral relativism that is arrogant, both because it will not now to principles and because it plays God in assuming we know the future, the consequences, like a soldier disobeying his orders because he thinks he knows better than his commanding officer"

"Hope's object is always personal, but it is never one's self. Hope in one's self is either foolish vanity or even more foolish pride. That is why even a mere thing is a surer sign of hope than a person if the thing is outside yourself and the person is yourself. (...) Hope is like the sky, unconquerable and spread over everything. Hope's object is not limited to particulars; it is universal, it is the nature of things, it is Being itself"

"There is no more life-transforming reform than total honesty, the absolute refusal to lie to oneself or others. Ask anyone in A.A. That's why we need Purgatory, for our sins to come into the light. That's why "practicing the presence of God" and moment mori (remember deaht) is the way to sanctity: there are not many sins a man will commit on his deathbed"



Recommended to anyone who likes philosophy, literature, and spirituality.

oh how i hated this book…

Spending time with the genius of Tolkien will always be a nostalgic pleasure, and this book illuminates the man’s genius in new and refreshing ways. Kreeft’s work revolves around Tolkien’s deep commitment to the Christian faith and the ways in which that faith shines through and out of the Lord of the Rings. The vast amount of philosophical questions tackled by Kreeft is impressive and the accessibility of this book makes it appealing to serious Tolkien scholars and causal readers alike. This is a wonderful introduction to Tolkien’s worldview, one that I would highly recommend. (And for me, perhaps selfishly, it’s always comforting to read someone who shares a strong conservatism and moral compass, meaning both Tolkien and Kreeft.)

A thoroughly excellent study of Tolkien and some of the deeper meaning to be found in LOTR. Kreeft divides the book into different philosophical fields and questions each field seeks to answer. He provides not only the applicable references from LOTR but provides other writings from Tolkien and CS Lewis as well. For someone like me who has never studied philosophy that much, I think the book works quite well an introduction in general. But mostly Kreeft really dives deep and brings greater clarity to a lot of the things I personally have felt from reading LOTR, especially the religious undertones. It’s also a pretty accessible book. As long as you have read LOTR at some point, I do not think you will need to re-read it before diving into this. All of this and it’s actually a fairly short book that is stuffed with incredible insight. I will most definitely keep revisiting this.

A nuanced and well-sourced breakdown of Tolkien and LOTR.

My first read of Peter Kreeft's, but undoubtedly not my last, The Philosophy of Tolkien is essentially a liaison between the "invisible" moral structure in the Lord of the Rings and the visible moral structure of the Church (one, holy, catholic, apostolic). While Tolkien pointedly did not want to use allegory or any overt Christian symbology or themes in his world-building, he writes that the Lord of the Rings itself was written to point to the greater, eternal truth of God.

To examine this, Kreeft poses a series of rather general moral and philosophical questions, and then uses excerpts from Tolkien's writings (both LOTR and others) and those of his contemporaries, critics, and other authors to answer them in a clear and unequivocal manner. The wisdom of Tolkien's best friend, C.S. Lewis, though Protestant and differing from Tolkien in certain places, is repeatedly expressed alongside Tolkien's own words to further clarify various points.

Kreeft answers questions both broad and specific, and extrapolates quite a bit on the role of characters and events throughout the Lord of the Rings trilogy and how they quietly mirror those of the Christian life and the battle between God and Satan. It is not a dense philosophical read, and is a good stepping stone for laymen (like myself) who couldn't handle something more dense. It IS a good read for fans of the LOTR trilogy, especially those who already have an inkling at the divine truth reflected in Tolkien's timeless tale.

This book inspired me to re-read The Lord of the Rings after more 10 years! The author often quotes C.S. Lewis along with excerpts from Tolkien's letters. The subjects range from ethics to angelology. I didn't realise there was so much beneath the words of Tolkien, let alone his Christian background. This book is the perfect example that, sometimes, you are still just not prepared to read and fully understand some works. Maybe this is why they are such classics; one has to re-read them as one grows old so they can keep on revealing their criptic meanings little by little.

Not only a helpful guide to philosophical aspects of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of The Rings" but also a compact review of various branches of philosophy. Kreeft's book is a practical resource for those desiring to develop further from an introductory understanding of philosophy. "The Lord of The Rings," in conjunction with Kreeft’s book, can be seen to sustain a comprehensive philosophical worldview as held by Tolkien. Kreeft encourages readers and lovers of Tolkien’s writing to consider more fully the depth of meaning within the story of "The Lord of The Rings."

Perhaps an obvious note: would not recommend reading "The Philosophy of Tolkien" without having first read "The Lord of The Rings." At minimum, read Kreeft’s book concurrently with Tolkien's "The Lord of The Rings."