How much of Eä did the Ainur actually create?

[scirocco]

A recent discussion on TORC touched on the issue of the role of the Ainur in the creation of Eä. I was putting forward the opinion that Eru's command of creation "Therefore I say: Eä! Let these things Be!" was responsible for providing the basic materials which the Ainur would use to "world-scape" the structure of Eä, and eventually of Arda itself, where they would dwell. An opposing view was put forward that the Ainur "created" everything and that nothing existed before they descended into Eä.

I had envisaged that Eru created perhaps a kind of featureless expanse of "matter" spread throughout an immeasurably large region of space. Gravitation and atomic forces would exist, the laws of physics would apply and would be used by the Ainur to sculpt together the stars, worlds, snowflakes and flowers going to make up Eä. My assumption is based on my reading of the published Ainulindalë and Valaquenta:

But when the Valar entered into Eä they were at first astounded and at a loss, for it was as if naught was yet made which they had seen in vision, and all was but on point to begin and yet unshaped, and it was dark. For the Great Music had been but the growth and flowering of thought in the Tuneless Halls, and the Vision only a foreshowing; but now they had entered in at the beginning of Time, and the Valar perceived that the World had been but foreshadowed and foresung, and they must achieve it. So began their great labours in wastes unmeasured and unexplored, and in ages uncounted and forgotten, until in the Deeps of Time and in the midst of the vast halls of Eä there came to be that hour and that place where was made the habitation of the Children of Ilúvatar...

Ainulindalë

Therefore Ilúvatar gave to their vision Being, and set it amid the Void, and the Secret Fire was sent to burn at the heart of the World; and it was called Eä...

Valaquenta

So what is Tolkien's intent here? Are we to regard the Ainur as world-shapers, moulding physical stuff given to them by Eru into everything from grains of sand to planets? Or should we think of them as outright "creators" at the most basic level, capable of creating matter/energy from nothing more than their Music and the permission of the One?

Your thoughts?

[superwizard]

I always saw the Ainur as simply artists that simply molded Eä. But I might be wrong.[/list]

[axordil]

One suspects that they had, at the very least, hydrogen and a bit of helium to start off with.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Interesting question, sciricco! I'd be interested in reading the discussion that you reference, if you could give a link.

I am very firmly in your camp on this point. My starting point is this quote from the Ainulindalë:

And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost sources in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite.

Then, turning to "Of Aulë and Yavanna":

'Even as I gave being to the thoughts of the Ainur at the beginning of the World, so now I have taken up they desire and given it a place therein ... .

In his Letters, Tolkien is even more specific. From the famous letter 131, to Milton Walden:

The cycles begin with a cosmogonical myth: the Music of the Ainur. God and the Valar (or powers: Englished as gods) are revealed. These latter are as we should say angelic powers, whose function is to exercise delegated authority in their spheres (of rule and government, not creation, making or re-making).

Then there is this statement, in Letter 181 (a draft to Michael Straight, the editor of The New Republic):

It is, I should say, a 'monotheistic but "sub-creational" mythology'. There is no embodiment of the One, of God, who indeed remains remote, outside the World, and only directly accessible to the Valar or Rulers. These take the place of the 'gods', but are created spirits, or those of the primary creation who by their own will have entered into the world* (*They shared in its 'making' -- but only on the same terms as we 'make a work of art or story. The realization of it, the gift to it of a created reality of the same grade as their own, was the act of the One God.)

I do not think that we can think of the Ainur as 'outright "creators" at the most basic level' as scirocco puts it. At most we should think of them as "sub-creators" whose creations have their "uttermost sources" in the One.

[Cerin]

What I find most puzzling is the relationship between the singing, the vision, and the 'naught was yet made' World as the Valar find it.

Ilúvatar said, 'Let these things Be!' That is, the things that had been sung and seen in the vision were now to become physically present. And so it seems that the labours of the Valar that are referred to, are pre-ordained as to their results. They can't bring forth what was not sung, and they aren't creating what was sung (the singing apparently created it, or 'pre-created' it?), but bringing it forth from the dimension of song into a physical dimension? But what sort of 'work', 'making', 'labour' does this entail?

The necessary ingredient is the Flame Imperishable, which Ilúvatar sends forth into the Void, to be at the heart of the World. Without the Flame, the Ainur's thoughts remain in the realm of song, only to be seen in the vision showed them by Ilúvatar. With the Flame, the World comes into being in the Void, but not in the completed state seen in the vision. This is the difficult part for me.

The creative power comes from Ilúvatar, the musical thoughts and designs of the Ainur have their source also in the mind of Ilúvatar, the finished Arda is pre-conceived from this singing; but what is manifested by use of the Imperishable Flame is not the finished Arda, but Arda at the point of its physical beginning. So it seems the 'work' of the Ainur is to physically fashion a manifestation of the great theme, doing now physically what they had previously done musically.

So I'd agree that the physical manifestation of the First Theme is this unshaped entity of matter, upon which the Ainur will now bring to bear their designs and embellishments physically, which they previously added to the theme musically.