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.
Analyse, “Is evil substantial an actual power? Or is it rather a void, or is or that which twists good? Just to clarify this is difference between holding that evil is as real as good is or saying that evil is nothing but a pathetic absence of a good that should be there. The latter understands evil to be a parasite on good.
We are talking about substantial evil and about parasitical evil.
Imagine if the two stances were correct.
Both are terrible. This is hypothetical. Could God use parasitical evil to avert and attack substantial evil? For example, would God be right to let us suffer forever as in parasitical evil if it were the only way to stop say one second of substantial evil?"
Say that substantial evil is contained and hardly seems to matter. What then?
Another thought, is substantial evil that lasts only a moment and hardly impacts as bad as substantial evil that is eternally enduring? Is what matters not what evil does or how long it lasts but what it is?"
Take the first bit. So what are we asking? Suppose evil could be a being or person. It is something real in its own right and not just like a good that is not good enough and falls short and is a lack.
Suppose there is another form - the lack type which is not a being or person. Could God be right to allow terrible things as in that type to happen forever to all his creatures if it meant he could stop substantial evil just for one second? What if that evil is just like a bad person coming into existence for a few minutes? That would not seem to matter if the person does not get a chance to hurt others.
An evil happens. The suffering is terrible. So God didn’t stop it. Why? Perhaps it was for a greater good? Or maybe it was because it prevented or will prevent some comparable or greater evil.
substantial evil by definition is intolerable. So the answer is God is right to let evil as a lack torment everybody forever if it is the price to pay to stop even a momentary substantial evil. It is not about any damage it might do but principle. It is about what the evil is.
Human nature recoils from this. This shows we are about happiness more than good and evil. We are not really what you would expect if we were made by a good God. This means we all like evil in our own way. We inherently fight the evil we don't like with the evil we do like. It gets complicated for each person likes different evil.
Religion says that evil is just good going wrong and it remains good. So evil is not really evil but is abused good. But what if substantial evil, evil as in a being, ontological evil, is real? Evil being a mere abuse of good does not mean it is the only kind of evil. Would God then let terrible evils happen in order to prevent or contain or defeat substantial evil? substantial evil because it is real means that if one person is substantial evil even if just for a second it is better for the universe to be full of other people who suffer terribly from the other kind of evil if it could do something about that one person.
If God made substantial evil then God is evil. If substantial evil just exists and is a brute fact then maybe it can replicate. It may be like God and have the power to make the universe from nothing, It may have the power to create new ontological evils out of nothing.
God then gives us another reason why substantial evil is intolerable. It implies he is not truly good or not he is another form of substantial evil himself. substantial evil is a God in its own way. If we believe in God to avoid believing in substantial evil that is evil. Why? We just don't want to recognise evil as substantial evil if it is substantial evil. That says something about the kind of people we are.
The second option speaks for itself. Huge vast substantial evil is not better than a tiny substantial evil. That would be saying that what matters is not what evil is but how it lasts and how persistent it is. That in fact would be an evil thing to say!