Does the Devil believe that he himself is bad?

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I'm interested in the Devil in Catholic theology - not whether I accept that the devil is ontologically as real as you or I, as suggested by this charming Rosary prayer:

Saint Michael Archangel,

defend us in battle,

be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil;

may God rebuke him, we humbly pray;

and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God,

cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl through the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen

but by whether the concept of such an irreducibly-bad entity can be made conceptually coherent. What form does the evilness of Satan take? With the help of GPT5.2 these questions were previously addressed here. 

But as a supplement, I'm interested in whether the Devil considers himself to be bad? And if so, why choose to be bad rather than good?

Let's ask that theological expert, GPT5.2

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Beyond Good and Evil? - How the Devil Escapes Normativity Without Denying It

The question that finally sharpens the whole discussion is this: how can the devil fully accept that the good–evil axis is real, objective, and binding - and yet consistently refuse its applicability to himself? Isn’t that incoherent? And doesn’t it amount, in effect, to placing himself 'beyond good and evil' ?

The Catholic answer is this: the devil does place himself beyond good and evil - but not by argument, not by denial, and not by constructing an alternative morality. He does so by refusal. Normativity is acknowledged, but participation is withdrawn.

The apparent contradiction

At first glance, the devil seems to occupy an impossible position. He knows what the good is. He knows that his stance opposes it. He knows that this opposition is what Catholics mean by “evil.” And yet he does not experience this as any reason to revise himself. He doesn't think he's 'bad'.

For human moral agents, that usually signals self-deception or rationalisation. Catholic theology explicitly rules both out. The devil is not confused, not ignorant, and not secretly telling himself a comforting lie in which he comes out virtuous. So how does his position hold together?

Normativity without participation: Thomas Aquinas

We turn to classical scholastic theology, most clearly articulated by Thomas Aquinas. For Aquinas, the good is not merely something the intellect recognises; it is something the will is ordered toward - as fulfilment. To experience the good as normative - as something that binds - is already to participate in it. Reflect a little on this.

The devil breaks precisely here.

His intellect apprehends the good correctly. Nothing is denied at the level of truth. But his will no longer tends toward the good as good. The good is seen, named, and understood - and then stripped of motivational authority.

This is not exemption by argument (“the rules don’t apply to me”) but exemption by refusal (“I will not stand under any rule at all”). That is why the devil does not need to justify himself as good. He simply stops caring whether the good binds him. It's irrelevant.

Augustine: evil as self-curvature

Augustine of Hippo gives the deeper psychological explanation. For Augustine, evil is not an alternative moral system. It is the will turned inward on itself (incurvatus in se). The devil does not construct a rival ethics. He abandons ethics as a governing category altogether.

Good and evil still exist - but only out there. They no longer function in here.

This is why the devil can accuse others (he knows the standard) while refusing to be judged by it. The standard remains real, but it is now externalised. Judgment flows outward only.

This is why the devil does not say “I am good,” or even “evil is good.” He simply abandons the question of goodness as something that could bind him.

Beyond good and evil?

In that sense, yes — the devil places himself “beyond good and evil.” But this must not be confused with the philosophical aspiration found in Nietzsche. Nietzsche’s “beyond good and evil” is a creative wager. It seeks to escape what he sees as a life-denying moral inheritance in order to affirm life anew, to invent values capable of sustaining vitality after transcendence has lost all credibility.

The devil does nothing of the sort.

He does not create values. He does not transvalue existing ones. He does not say Yes to anything. His “beyond good and evil” is not generative but sterile. It is not freedom-as-creation but freedom-as-withdrawal.

You could put the contrast like this:

Nietzsche wants to go beyond good and evil in order to affirm life.
The devil is beyond good and evil because he will not affirm anything at all.

How the position avoids incoherence

The devil’s stance avoids contradiction because it does not deny normativity; it refuses subjection to it.

He does not claim that there is no good. He does not claim that good and evil are illusions. He does not secretly redefine himself as virtuous. Instead, his implicit position is this:

The good is real.
It is not my good.
Nothing external has the right to define me.

That position is coherent - but catastrophic. It preserves lucidity at the price of isolation from the very structure that makes agency meaningful.

The final shape of the claim

The devil does not reason his way beyond good and evil. He does not justify himself. He does not need to. He simply refuses participation while fully understanding what he refuses.

That is why Catholic theology treats him not as mistaken, not as hypocritical, but as finished: a will that has made itself ultimate, and in doing so emptied itself of fulfilment. Ultimate autonomy.

He does not misunderstand the moral order. He just will not live inside it.

And that, in the Catholic imagination, is what evil looks like when it has reached its final, lucid form.

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