Flat Earth

"In Tolkien's Silmarillion the world is flat (until its fall) and therefore has an edge. A flat world is a physical symbol for a supernatural metaphysics. It points a "beyond" beyond its edge, a "more". But a round world is self-contained, and absolutely relative. In The Silmarillion the world is changed from flat to round as a divine punishment. This is far from fantastic; it is symbolically quite accurate. For in fact, the divine punishment was that our worldview, rather than our world, was changed from supernaturalism to naturalism.

Yet one edge, one absolute, remains in our round, relative world, though not in space, but in time. There is death, personal time's absolute edge."

-Peter J. Kreeft in The Philosophy of Tolkien