Is evil a power? Religion says it is not a thing at all - it is just an absence of what should be there and is not there. Good is independent and evil is dependent on good like a parasite. For example, the person who has hate in their heart is lacking love. Hate in a sense is emptiness not a thing.
According to the doctrine, evil should be understood as subtraction — it is simply good with something missing. Because of this, evil is not the opposite of good; rather, it is the absence of good. Some even suggest that evil is less than nothing. To use a metaphor, if goodness were a sweater, evil would be like moth holes eating away at it. In this view, evil is not a presence but a lack, something worse than nothing.
So what if we ask where evil came from? The doctrine says our question is not that but should be, “How does something that is a lack, a nothing, originate?” The religious answer is that it does not. So that gets around the suggestion that God made evil. There is nothing to make.
But then we get a new problem. "Somebody set up things for this lack to possibly appear. Was it God?" If evil is a lack then who caused the first lack? A person can only cause a lack if a lack is there for lacks lead to lacks and facilitate lacks. God is the only answer.
Others say that the best answer is that this lack has always been. 1 and 1 are 2 no matter if there is a God or not or if there is nothing at all. In this view, evil is just going to be potentially there and has no need for a creator or any intervention.
Another view is that evil was either created literally by God or always existed regardless of what he wants. It says that evil, like the truth, exists on its own. It is a real force, a real presence. Evil can be real and still be seen as a lack, by the way.
Clearly though the God idea needs the lack notion the lack notion does not need the God idea.
The Christian doctrine is that as God made all things and is good the problems in the created order must be down to people misusing their free will. They lack to do good and that is how you have evil.
They say that good is the standard and anything that falls short of it is evil. Evil is just the absence of a good that should be there but is not. So as it is an absence there is nothing to create or make so the question of God creating evil does not arise. Thus Christians hold that evil is not a force but a malfunction. Good is the function. Evil cannot happen without good. Evil is a malfunction that attacks good. It cannot affect good for good remains good but it obscures it. It is good that remains good but is in the wrong place and the wrong time. The gold is good. It is just your crave for it, your greed, that is bad and this does not affect how good the gold is. Evil is a subtraction of a good that can be there and should be there but is not.
This idea is used by those who support intelligent design. It allows them to affirm that the design is good in itself and that evil damages it for it twists the good.
Indeed, design or not, it is still saying that we should not twist.
So the argument is saying that accepting how you are made or how you are is smart and rejecting it is stupid.
Accepting keeps things in balance while rejecting is opening a Pandora's box of disorder and chaos.
[We should strongly oppose such ideas. Many people today feel nature got it wrong for them and they have to better it. They courageously defy it. Persons feel they are sent the wrong pregnancy and so will terminate. Many trans feel they are in the wrong existence, and to alleviate the consequent suffering, they have to design themselves to be who they are. The person opting for the right to die with dignity, is also in the wrong existence for them.]
Religion says that, "People can use their free will in a way that diminishes them and blocks their potential to be what they should be." So how could person x be equal to person y if person x is in some way managing to diminish herself as a person? She is more "nothing" than y is. The failure of love the sinner and hate the sin is apparent here. Rather than love, this is hatred turned into a long lasting slow burner.
Religion assumes we need free will as in being able to harm or help, love or not-love, in order to have dignity. Some philosophers have said that you can have more dignity or as much, by having free will only to do good. Religion itself says that turning to evil involves a mistake on your part and says evil is a deceiver. So it is hard to see how the evil person has as much free will as a good person, when their vision is obscured.
So free will only to do good is still condemned by religion as not being real free will. But why can't it be a paradox? It will not consider that for it wants to protect the notion that God made us all and is not to blame for the harm we do.
Given how religion says the evil choice is not valid for not informed or clear, there is a paradox anyway.
I know what paradox I'd prefer as any reasonable person would.
Good and evil and suffering and happiness need each other if this is the best possible universe (a best possible universe can still be a pretty terrible one) and if there is a God. God will not let evil just happen for nothing even if it is just tolerated for the sake of us having free will. Tolerance implies that God is hurt by your evil for he is forced to put up with it so that is one reason why evil is seen as an attack on God.
If a good is addition and evil is subtraction then how do you know the good really is good? An evil that is just a void that looks like it is more than that is a very unclear thing. So if you cannot know it then how can you know that good? If you see a void maybe it is just a void and not really evil? Maybe the evil you spot is not the real problem and there is a worse one hiding behind it? There is no real contrast.
A killer virus is good if it does what viruses do. Vesuvius was good for it destroyed all around it like good volcanoes do. This presupposes that the purpose for these things is do these things. If a virus is not made by any God but just appears naturally then you can decide that no purpose counts but what purpose it makes for itself and you don't care. You will wipe it out with its purpose.
You are not saying, "It existed for a purpose and then God decided this purpose was no more which is why he gave me the purpose of destroying it." No. Instead you are engaging in total defiance and a refusal to say, "It was okay to have the virus as long as God gave it its purpose." Such a view is fanatical - people suffer. Nobody has the right to condone anything like that.
Evil is expert at disguising itself and causing unexpected trouble. You see that as plainly as you see the boulder in front of you. Thus to you it is clearly more than just a vacuum where good should exist but does not! That makes it sound like air inside a balloon when it is something more powerful than that. Its power more than what it is is the issue. Do not call it a mere subtraction to water it down to make it fit your pet God theory.