Thomas C’s Faith Crisis Continues…

{...along with certain technical difficulties referred to at the start of the previous post. By now, I think I’ve figured out that at least part of the problem is my computer. “O, to be Technically proficient!” I cry out in the spirit of Carlyle. “But alas, the universe is one Unfeeling toolbar or Whatever, persisting in doing weird Stuff when I betakest myself to poke around on it. But at least I still have the power to Type, and Type I will though the pangs of Tophet smite me." From The Temporary Glitch - Book First, chapter I}

Anyway, taking up again from the post before last of June 27, let’s look at the remainder of my excerpt from Thomas Carlyle’s spiritual autobiography, Sartor Resartus (The Tailor Re-tailored). This abridgment also consists of direct quotations presented without commentary and in the same order in which the lines appear in Carlyle’s text.

From The Everlasting No - Book Second, chapter VII:

… even now, when doubting God’s existence. “One circumstance I note,”… “Genuine Love of Truth {was behind} all the nameless woe {that} Inquiry {had brought me.} I nevertheless still loved Truth, and would bate no jot of my allegiance to her. ‘Truth!’ I cried, though the Heavens crush me for following her…”

… the very Devil had been pulled down, you cannot so much as believe in a Devil. To me the Universe was all void of Life, of Purpose, of Volition, even of Hostility: it was one huge dead, immeasurable Steam-engine, rolling on, in its dead indifference, to grind me limb from limb.

Often… there was a question present to me: Should some one… blow thee suddenly… into the other World, or other No-World, by pistol- shot, - how were it? {I.e., “What of it?” or “So what?”}

So had {my despair}... lasted, as in bitter protracted Death-agony, through long years...

What about that One Far-Off Divine Event?

Again, it seems to me that hopelessness is the essential feature of Carlyle’s despair. Here we also see what for Carlyle was at the bottom of it: his rejection of the beliefs he’d grown up with. In all honesty – he refers to his love of truth – he couldn’t believe these things anymore.

Comments on the prior two Carlyle posts emphasized present centeredness vs. dwelling too much on the past or future. Notice, however, that what Carlyle dwells on isn’t his loss of hope for future career advancement or roomier living quarters or even fixing a technical glitch on his computer. He’s lost Hope with a capital H – Hope, to borrow the words of another 19th century writer whose name has come up, for that “one far-off divine event/To which the whole creation moves.” (Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam)

It looks to me that here Carlyle sees death as the end of everything for us in a pointless, lifeless, material universe. Is this a problem that can be solved by present centeredness? Is it a problem at all? Why or why not?

Update Sat. July 7: And What Kind of Hope are we Talking About?

Raffi’s comment, the first on this thread, brings to mind what may be a basic distinction between how people think about their hope or faith. Maybe this could be termed the “specifically hopeful” vs. the “generally hopeful”?

Specific Hopers: They have definite ideas about an afterlife. I think, for example, about Catholicism’s heaven and hell with purgatory in between. Personal immortality and reunion with loved ones are usually major features of the specifics.

General Hopers: Tennyson’s line cited above could be inserted here too. He writes of hope for that “one far-off divine event to which the whole creation moves.” Unity is a big theme with general hopers and they don’t talk much about specifics.

Grass Hopers: They only feel hopeful when… OK, bad joke, but I find the similarity to grass hoppers irresistible…