DEFINITIONS
Evil as a Mere Lack: Evil isn’t real on its own; it’s just the absence or corruption of good — a weakness or flaw that depends on good to exist.
Evil as a Real Substance: Evil is an actual, independent force or power that can act on its own and influence the world directly.
These cover evils such as moral and natural evils.
THE ARGUMENT
You wonder how a good creator of all can be reconciled with how you see evil running riot. The Church will reply that each evil only gets out of hand for a time and is then arrested. You see no effort made by the Church to give evidence of that. It is simply only an answer — and not a serious one. It should be serious. It matters hugely if people suffer. Evil gets out of control permanently when a life is lost. And if evil is unruly for a time, then how long is that time? Does God decide arbitrarily what that time is?
In fact, God being all-knowing does not mean he knows who Henry VIII's tenth wife was, so he does have to be arbitrary.
Think of it this way. You see evil. You tell yourself that God is there correcting and protecting despite it. What thought matters most? Which one counts if you have to make a choice?
The theology says that to respect free will, God only lets things go out of control for a time, then he brings good out of it. Don't be fooled. If God makes and sustains all, there is no real letting go out of control. It only looks that way. None of this is coherent.
OBJECTION: Christian theology typically includes the notion of secondary causes and human free will, not absolute divine micromanagement.
Well, it isn't consistent. Also, if free will were really independent, that does not mean anything else is. The idea of secondary causes contradicts how much all depends on God.
Now let us continue.
If evil is destruction and damage and chaos, this doctrine is clearly in conflict with that. It does not fit what evil is supposed to even mean.
Believers hold that God can create as he pleases. He can create a whole universe of disorder. An artist still has to design the mess on the canvas. The divine purpose argument shows that believers do not really think chaos and mess are bad. They just don't want them to be permitted by God in their own lives. They happen, so then they try to find ways to calm their frustration. They deal with how the universe is full of mess — and mess that they do not want — by looking for excuses for why it is happening.
It is a vicious circle: "God is not to blame for evil, for he condemns it and is at war with it. Therefore, evil happening is proof that God puts up with it and works against it. He is not to be condemned." It makes as much sense as saying, "God makes the perfect custard. I enjoyed the perfect custard, therefore there is a God."
Such reasonings are harmful, for you end up having no right to object to, "God loves me, so my life is sacred. I feel the urge to kill John, therefore God does not love him, so it is not a sin to kill him."
An evil God can condemn evil and not mean it. Evil people typically fight much evil so that the evil they want may thrive. God could be one of those. They are guilty of redefining evil to suit their view of God. Evil should mean harm and viciousness.
Satan is described in the Bible as the accuser, so he preaches against evil. He knows that if he wants you to be really evil, he has to identify what evil is. Interestingly, while Satan wants people to be evil, that does not mean he approves of the evil they do. All evil people disapprove of evil in others. They are about the evil they prefer. The person wants, not evil, but their own evil.
Jesus was thought to say that Satan punishes people in Hell. Evil beings do punish other evil beings, so that would be nothing strange.
Anywhere, this is what Jesus supposedly said, Luke 12:4‑5:
"I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that have nothing more they can do. But I will warn you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!"
[Thought to mean God, but it looks like Satan!]
For that reason, something opposing evil and punishing it does not mean it is good itself.
To deal with harm or evil, you need to see that it truly needs action to contain it. The danger, the recklessness, is one of the main reasons you fight it and call it harm and evil.
Thus, you see that religion is incoherent. It says you cannot really believe in evil unless there is a good God who thus opposes it — and then it as good as tells you that evil, as in disorder, is not real.
For example, sickness is said to be nothing in its own right, but just the absence of health. Evil is just the absence of good. God supposedly makes only good, meaning that evil is just a distortion of good and is not real in that sense.
The doctrine of evil being a non-thing is bad enough itself but has offshoots that are gravely harmful.
Christianity waffles that suffering is a blessing from God and yet to be removed as an evil. The Bible itself says that suffering that cannot be stopped is a sign of God sending you something to train you — for he loves you.
So the paradox of suffering being bad and yet good is the Christian answer to God allowing suffering to happen. It presumes, by the way, that nobody is really innocent and they need it.
There is no mention of the fact that this is not answering the question: “Is suffering evil?” It is sending a mixed message and calling that an answer. If you cannot be clear on suffering being bad, you cannot be clear on anything being morally bad.
So Christians and believers in God talk about this paradox of suffering being blessing and needing opposition. Atheists say it is a straight contradiction.
In logic, you tell the difference between a paradox and a contradiction this way: A paradox is when A and non-A are both proven. You need the proof. Without that, it would be clearly nonsense. It can happen that something seems incoherent, and the problem might be us missing something that solves the puzzle. A contradiction is nonsense, and a paradox is not.
God is unproven. So there is no paradox. It is a contradiction.
There is more. What if you had evidence for God's love and evidence that he lets evil thrive? Well, if you say that evil is a serious matter and each evil is different, and each evil deed is really just a summary of many evils itself — each evil is a composite of evils — you need to take a case-by-case and bit-by-bit approach. Not taking such a cautious and precise approach shows you don't really believe that evil is that important.
Usually when people rant about evil, it is only because it is an evil they dislike — and it does not matter about other kinds.
So that is evil. It is telling how the Church sidesteps the related and more basic problem: how can an all-good God let a person feel abandoned by him? If God abandons nobody, then he must set things up to fool this person. Or they do it to themselves. Or both. Even to suggest that — even if you think it is not the case, for thinking is only thinking — is terrible.
A God of faith is a God who could be fooling you, but you just assume he probably is not. You give him the benefit of the doubt. Thus, faith is not about him, but about you — about your feeling that you want to trust. It is about the wanting to trust, not if you should trust.
A God who could be fooling is not a God any human person should be inviting you to follow. Why? Because they do not care if he is fooling and are going to fool you themselves.
Faith in God that is really about your needs, not his, makes it reprehensible to use it to contend that evil and suffering should be allowed to happen by him.
Religion says God did not make evil, for he only makes good. It says there is nothing there to make.
What does this notion of evil being unreal and merely an absence of good rather than an opposite lead to? It leads to evil things, for it makes evil too unclear. You cannot define it correctly. That is bad enough, but even if evil could be defined clearly, it is still able to mask itself and hide among good things.
This is an evil evasion. To be clear, the claim that evil is only a distortion of the good that God has made is itself an evasion and a trick with language.
While we are told that evil is conniving and will look less evil than it is, we are told to give evil people and evil deeds as much of the benefit of the doubt as we can. We are called evil if we see evil in others that we only think is there.
That is incoherence. It is proof that religion is unable to guide — but is good at looking as if it does.
The reality is that human nature does not truly oppose evil; it only opposes some evils when it suits, while it wallows in the others.
God-belief tells you that you want to use evil to get some good thing for yourself. So you are not drawn by the evil, but by what you can get out of it. You want the good. But evil is disorder and chaos and violence? Yes — but not for you. You want others to suffer from them while you gain.
This suggests that you are not evil, for you cannot fully see what you are doing and only see what attracts you. You do not see the evil for what it is.
God-belief blames people who will not forgive a person as being as bad as that person. For example, if somebody murders your parents and you wish evil and harm on that person, you are accused of colluding with them in evil. You are putting more evil into the evil they have done.
God-belief says that some evil is in the past and does not matter anymore — which is condoning it. To say evil is okay as long as it's done with is hardly what you would expect from a good person. Most — if not virtually all — forgiveness is really condoning something just because it is not happening now. You don’t care that evil was done, and only care that it is not happening now. It is about convenience, not principle. Most — if not all — praise for how God forgives is masking how we think that God is as bad as us.
Evil being the absence of good cannot make evil evil. It turns it into a form of neutrality. But then neutrality needs to be neither good nor evil — which is the same as it being both. Neutral, if defined as good, is balanced by a lack of good.
For example, withholding kindness — such as not giving money for food to a drug addict — is an absence of good, if I accept the lack theory. But it is not evil. If consciousness is my most important quality, then it is inherently evil to fall asleep. If free will is my most important aspect, then losing it or reducing it is inherently evil. That makes no sense.
One confusion is that we definitely do need the notion of something being both bad and good — and to understand people who acted thinking some situation was, or seemed to be, evenly both. Yet to say that good alone is real and evil is just a parasite, or good in the wrong place and time, denies that. It weighs the balance down on the good side.
To accuse people who were forced to tolerate an evil of being evil is a new low. Christian morality does not agree with itself.
Finally, a faith, or spirituality, or Jesus, or religion that gives non-answers — or answers that are too vague or confused to mean anything — when you ask why your beloved grandparent is suffering so, puts its ideology above being human.
APPENDIX:
If evil is just a falling short of good, it is hardly that serious. It is true that Christianity says it is very serious. But taking something seriously that is not serious is a form of evil. It is all contradictions.