Religious or Irreligious: The Devil In Thomas Carlyle's "Everlasting No"

A question that can be brought forward after reading Thomas Carlyle’s “Everlasting No” is, if the narrator has renounced his belief in God, and embraced free will or defiance and indignation then why does he feel the need to profess his hatred of the Devil, who presumably does not exist? In other words, if one does not believe in God, does it then follow that they do not believe in the devil, or vice versa?

This is a very open question, and must be narrowed down in order to shed light on the subject. Carlyle writes, “Full of religion, or at least of religiosity as our Friend has since exhibited himself, he hides not that, in those days, he was wholly irreligious: “Doubt had darkened into Unbelief,” says he; “shade after shade goes grimly over your soul, till you have the fixed, starless, Tartarean black” (Carlyle 86). It seems that he has lost all hope; he states that he is wholly irreligious; however, it seems that he has not renounced the negative aspects of religion, but the positive components (ie. God, his light, and all the positive aspects that he represents). This is a point of view that is common in today’s society also. People constantly ask questions like “if God truly exists, then why are there so many terrible events that take place everyday?” In this shade of understanding, NE is not irreligious; rather, he has simply given up all hope in the world.

In addition, perhaps the narrator is utilizing the devil as a metaphor for misery, and as a result, he may in fact be irreligious. He has denounced God and all that is positive in the world, and if he is “wholly irreligious” as the reading illustrated, then it would follow that his only remaining belief or ‘truth’ is all that is miserable in the world, which is not necessarily the product of the devil. Carlyle explains later that people’s belief or need of religion is more a means to justify their actions or the actions of others: “Faith is properly the one thing needful; how, with it, Martyrs, otherwise weak, can cheerfully endure the shame and the cross; and without it, Worldlings puke-up their sick existence, by suicide, in the midst of luxery” (86). This corroborates the statement that he is wholly irreligious.

On the other hand, the reader could also come to the conclusion that NE is not traditionally devout or irreligious, rather worships the devil as his ‘idol’. Though on first appearance this may lead one to believe that he is not religious, but in fact he is just not religious in the traditional sense (ie. If you believe in any form of God, then you are considered religious). Nevertheless, by blaming the devil the NE is unequivocally religious as belief in the devil or whatever God you may believe in, is the essence of religion.

There are valid points to be made confirming NE as both religious and irreligious. My opinion is that NE is not religious and the devil references do not make him so. The devil is a metaphor for misery only, and in the narrator’s depressed state, he believes in nothing more than the constant misery of the world.