The Surprisingly Easily Overlooked Question of Whether or Not I Believe in the Soul

In the September 16 issue of the New Yorker, excerpts from the diary of a young (very young--21 years old) Flannery O'Connor are reprinted.  O'Connor apparently used her diary as a mechanism, a vehicle for prayer: she began each entry with the address, My Dear God.  There are pages of yearning, self-castigating entries which would be familiar, almost embarrassingly recognizable, to any intelligent Catholic kid.  And then in the middle of it all, standing alone, there is this:

No one can be an atheist who does not know all things.  Only God is an atheist.  The devil is the greatest believer & he has his reasons.

It's been a while since I last had reason to believe that such lightning lived in homely, ordinary folk.  My current circumstances get in the way of paying real attention to the soul, mine or anyone else's.  But I figure I must believe in it.  I must.  Otherwise I'd care more about the quotidian business of finance, trade, sales, etc., and less about such music as this above.  Such clarity, and such potential in a Southern girl...