Gift of Men - A Spiritual/theological View of The Gift of Men

A Spiritual/theological View of The Gift of Men

The Gift of Men was an act of the supreme being Ilúvatar that set the race of Men apart from the Elves. While the race of Elves would know the most bliss and contentment and would conceive more beauty than any others of the Children of Ilúvatar, it was decreed by this gift that Men would be the prime instruments of Ilúvatar within Arda.

Ilúvatar willed that the spirits/hearts of Men are not content within Arda, and find no rest therein, and therefore seek beyond the world and its confines. They are not bound to the Circles of the World, as the Elves and all other creatures of Arda are bound to the Earth. The spirits of Men truly leave the physical world, and do not return. Thus their fates are completely sundered from that of the Elves, who do not die until the world dies. If slain by violence or ill chance, or by wearying at the last of the passage of centuries, they are gathered in the Halls of Mandos. But as the years grow long and Time wears, even the Valar will come to envy the gift of Ilúvatar to the race of Men, that of liberation from the physical world, and the inevitability of loss and sorrows that must come with this existence within Arda.

Moreover, it is also a consequence of this true spiritual freedom of not being bound to either the ordinance of Fate, or the confines of the World that the spirits of Men do not dwell long in Arda, and after what seems to be a very short time to the immortal Elves, men age, grow weary, and die.

However, a key aspect of this gift of living within Arda for a short time was a virtue instilled into the race of Men to be motivated to create destinies for themselves amidst the powers and chances of the world. Men were able to shape their lives beyond the Music of the Ainur, which rules the fates of all other things in Arda. Men may choose to live in tune with the themes of the Music that created Arda, or be indifferent to it, or live in defiance of it.

Ilúvatar understood that Men would not always use this gift of freedom in harmony with the world, and would stray often. But he knew that in their time, Men would continue to order their lives within Arda and by their "operation everything should be, in form and deed, completed, and the world fulfilled unto the last and smallest" (The Silmarillion). Thus Men would become the implements by which Ilúvatar's plans for Arda will be realised in the ages to come.

The Gift, as originally bequeathed, was not something that Men feared. Though they loved their lives within Arda, they relinquished their spirits gracefully, almost gladly, and seemed to pass into a peaceful sleep, never to wake again in this life. But their souls go to a place unknown to the wisest of Elves or even the Valar.

However it is written that when the Second Music of the Ainur is played, after the Dagor Dagorath, the spirits of Men shall be included in this even greater theme, when all of the players will know and understand their part and its relation to the whole, and be tributary to its beauty and glory.