In His his wonderful new book, On the Shoulders of Hobbits: The Road to
Virtue with Tolkien and Lewis, Lou Markos has some profound and
beautiful things to say about the nature of good and evil. On portion that
particularly stands out in my mind is in chapter 15, “Blinded by the Light” in
which he exposes the inability of evil to stand before the light of good, or
even to understand it. Markos masterfully unwraps the layers of this reality.
First he quotes from Tolkien’s Return of
the King in which Gandalf explains to Aragorn why Frodo and Sam have a hope
of making it through Mordor to destroy the ring of power.
“That we would wish to cast him down and have no one in his place is not a thought that occurs to his mind. That we should try to destroy the Ring itself has not yet entered into his darkest dream.” (Hobbits, 168)
Markos goes on to expound on one of the profoundest
truths of all of Tolkien’s works:
“The reason Sauron has not guessed the true purpose of the Fellowship is not that he is a fool or even that he is prideful, but that he simply cannot conceive that someone would willingly forsake power. He is completely blind to the ways and motivations of goodness; such Light is too bright for his darkened eyes to fathom.” (Hobbits, 168)
Think on that for a moment, on the
insight into the limitations of evil and the evil one. Sauron’s inability to
recognize a good, noble, humble, and sacrificial motive was his undoing. He
could not fathom anyone willingly giving up power or being willing to risk life
and limb to do so, yet someone did, actually an entire fellowship did. In the
end it was Sauron’s inability to recognize good that led to the undoing of evil
in Middle Earth.
When I read this all my readings of
the gospels stood on their head. For so long I have read of Jesus life, death,
and resurrection as one of victory. But I had read of it as a victory in
battle, as if at the cross Satan was screaming in his best villain voice
“NOOOOOOoooooooo!” as he wilted. I had seen it as mano a mano combat between
Jesus and Satan with Jesus ultimately overthrowing him. This wasn’t necessarily
a conscious mental depiction, but it was the sense I had. How wrong I was.
What Markos wrote showed me so
clearly that the smartest thing Satan could have done to condemn the world to
destruction was to keep Jesus alive. But, like Sauron, Satan is incapable of
understanding humility, servanthood, and sacrifice. Humanity needed a perfect
sacrifice to pay our debt to God, and rather than keep that sacrifice off the
cross Satan was more than willing to put Him there. Satan’s currency and
language are those of power and dominion; that’s why he sought to get Jesus to
bow to him in the wilderness. He only understands pursuit of self-fulfillment and
the conquest of self-glorification. Satan was so hell bent on destroying good
that he didn’t realize that he was playing into God’s hands. By setting out to
gain victory over Jesus by killing Him, Satan condemned himself.
God’s victory over Satan was one,
not of epic struggle, but of the omniscient One putting a plan of salvation
into place into which Satan fit as the perfect stooge because of his own
incapacity for good. Satan, with his every effort to further defeat Jesus,
ensured his own ruin – all as part of God’s plan. My own wonder at the wisdom
of God is increased because of the places Lou Markos took me in these pages
(and the rest of the book is equally as good).
