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.
THE ARGUMENT
A person may hold that evil is a literal presence, a real energy. This is substantial evil.
Another person may dispute this and state that evil is a mere deficiency, something failing to be as good as it should be. They say the only power is good or neutral and evil is just the misuse of these things. This is parasitical evil. It was popularised by Augustine of Hippo.
For the purpose of this study, we will ignore how evil being substantial, does not mean it cannot be a parasite too. It can. Evil as in lack is a parasite in that it cannot happen unless it twists good. Substantial evil would be a parasite in a more literal sense, like an invisible magical leech.
All hold that an evil twists good. It is a lie in itself. A lie is the biggest and best way to distort good also. So evil is a lie and needs a lie about what it is. So it must be the biggest sin to lie. A lie being big or small does not matter. The principle is big and that is what counts. Evil always then involves a lie about good.
What is evil? For Augustine, evil is the lie that evil is substantial. So malice and hate and harm are nothing compared to the lie part. Lying then must be the worst sin.
Implications are:
God enables the lie to happen for he does not expose it there and then.
Lies can be actions not just verbal. That means most lies are acted.
A lie however small or how much evil it averts or prevents is a serious intolerable evil. Even telling the truth when millions die because of it, is better than a lie that prevents those deaths.
Love the sinner hate the sin really should be, “Don’t worry about the harm done as much as the lying. Love the liar and hate the lies.” Such a view shows you do not really love the sinner at all and are judging harshly about the lying.
How can a loving creator make evil and suffering? Religion says he does not for evil or suffering is a kind of nothing so there is nothing to make. It is just good that has been twisted by the lie.
We can still ask if God is an evil creator for if he lets evil happen from evil intent then its being a nothing is not the point.
Also physics shows that reality is almost nothing so there is room for God causing evil even if evil is nothing.
And then you have religion telling you that you have a soul and a soul is a something that is a nothing. Or the soul is a non-material but real entity. It is undeniable that theology should ask if spirit is what physics is on about? It is undeniable that physics should ask if the “nothing-near-something” it finds is God or something like God or a spirit. It is a simple lie that religion and physics work in separate areas so that physics cannot refute God for the concept has nothing to do with physics. We already have something like spirit in physics so why should God be out of bounds?
Evil by definition is a communication and a truth. This truth is when evil conveys: I am that which must not be tolerated ever for a purpose.
Thus evil testifies against the existence of God.
Is it lying that there is no God?
Not necessarily. It it does not fit God it does not fit. In fact it would lie that there is a God.
Anyway God of love cannot tolerate evil for, hypothetically, if he is letting it happen he is as good as saying he does not exist.
Evil is bigger than God in some way when he has to tolerate the intolerable. If evil testifies against God then it is telling the truth then.
If it is not is that why it is so bad for telling such a lie? Religion will say that God that which alone matters and we need to find him so evil is deflecting us from our ultimate destination, God.
To say God uses evil is to say he has a role for it and a plan and this calls God a liar. And that would be the ultimate malicious lie in the same way as saying that if we stood in Herod’s shoes we would see why he was right to have his family murdered. It’s just trying to see good and feel good about others and victimising them over again.
M Scott Peck of People of the Lie fame saw evil as the lie and noticed it had power to trigger evil in the person who merely sees it. If evil is a lie then like all lies, it is able to plant something in you. Something gets in. It can use this to get you to hate the sinner for you are hating an evil in them that you are blind to in yourself. In fact believing or knowing this in itself can by itself have a self-programming effect that leads to hate.
An evil would not need to directly lie to you. It is enough if it makes you less confident about what to stand for. Liars often like to leave people not knowing what to believe for that makes them easy to take advantage of.
CONCLUSION
Evil, whether substantial or parasitic, is fundamentally a distortion or twisting of good.
This distortion is inherently a lie—evil misrepresents the nature of good and truth.
Augustine’s view that evil is the lie that evil itself is real highlights lying as the worst sin.
Focusing on lying reframes moral judgment: love the liar, reject the lies.
The existence of evil challenges the concept of a loving creator but may reflect freedom and the corruption of good, not direct creation by God.
Theology and physics both point toward deeper connections between spirit, reality, and possibly God, blurring traditional boundaries.
Evil communicates a harsh truth: it must never be tolerated and in doing so, it challenges the existence or nature of God.
Evil’s role as a lie creates uncertainty and manipulation, making truth and clarity essential in resisting it.
Understanding evil as a lie invites deeper reflection on truth, love, morality, and the human condition.