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.
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.
[So evil is like 2 and 2 being 4, it is not real the way the brick is real. Religion argues that God alone makes all things and God is good. This scheme places the blame and origin of harm and suffering in creatures having free will and misdirecting it. So evil apart from free agents does not exist. It is those agents who are the problem.]
You can actually argue that both forms of evil happen if you wish. One can even pretend to be the other. Something very evil and powerful could pretend to be a mere deficiency. Evil would lie for the sake of lying. And the second reason is that it is trying to confuse you so you cannot diagnose and maybe deal with it accurately. The third reason is that if evil is only a defect it is less threatening than evil that is an actual presence.
Evil that is a mere parasite might like to pretend to be substantial evil for that makes it look tougher and again avoids correct diagnosis. It too would like for the hell of it.
Working against what is seen to be bad and absolutely detesting it, are two different things. If something is evil, then you respond both ways.
It is obvious that you should take that attitude towards the plague, a natural event, but to direct it towards people only means you are being a hypocrite. It should not matter how harm happens, it should be detested and opposed. Religious opposition to evil is rife with presumptive untruths.
Devotion to God goes with the claim that true evil is only in people and then it pretends that it hates nobody.
It waters down the harm done by nature, to pick on the harm done by people, so it is about control rather than love and justice.
It pretends to be okay with trying to understand why somebody did evil, but if evil is malicious and inexcusable there is no room for understanding.
All you have left is the demonisation of the person classed as evil. We have found that both the substantial evil approach and the parasitical evil approach do that, albeit not necessarily in the same way.
Once you say evil is a substance, you say that anybody could be secretly in league with it so you call everybody potentially evil in that literal sense.
The parasitic evil approach may sound okay in theory, but it does not change the fact that people do see evil in very literal terms. Evolutionists know that we still have the tribal wiring in us. For survival, the brain turns a potential threat into something very dark and literally evil. No religionist can prove that evil is a mere deficiency - it is a guess. A guess! It is no wonder it does nothing to stop the temptation to literalise evil and to demonise.
AN INSULT TO THE EXPERIENCE OF MANY
Trying to turn evil into mere parasite divorces evil from your experience. You are called a liar if you experience evil.
Evil must be a real experience for you. Religion would say the experience FEELS real enough to you but the fact is it is a nothing.
Then why are we so good at making it as good as real to ourselves and to each other? An experience is real in its own way just like a brick is. If there is a God then God creates the experience!
To call evil a mere absence of good is an insult and calls the sufferer deluded or guilty of reacting to a deficiency as if it were not a lack. The sufferer wittingly or unwittingly is lending evil more power and more reality than it has..
Experience shows we NEED to and UNAVOIDABLY need to see human evil as substantial evil. How many we choose to see that way and why, differs with each individual. One reason is to stir up fear and revulsion towards evil. It is feared that it gets a hold and thrives if it is responded to with any softness.
If you can have a substantial evil experience or close enough to that, you can be, literally or as good as, substantially evil as a person. You can use your experience to make and define you. It explains why some people who experience an evil become it.
PEOPLE PRETEND NOT TO BELIEVE IN SUBSTANTIALLY EVIL PEOPLE
Some might say certain people are substantially evil. They invariably like to put say Hitler forward to contrast him with themselves. They are keen to hold that such evil is in others, not themselves!
Some say that substantially evil people are a fiction. If so then evil can only be a separate force from any agent. In that view no person is substantially evil and evil is always an attempt to do good in the wrong way - parasitic only. The idea is that a well-meaning person is trying to do good but with evil and does not even see it.
The Christian view [with typical confusion] sees evil as involving a mistake - you aim at good the wrong way and end up pushing it away. In this view, evil is only a deficiency of a good that should be there and is not you wielding evil as in a power to do harm. The mistake view flows from the denial that evil is a substantial power. That is the essential argument for saying evil people are not all bad or substantially evil. It does not work so why should we believe those who use it to argue they don't believe in substantially evil people?
We will overlook how the Church calls evil a mistake, and how it contradicts itself in approaching it as something more sinister than an error. Believers in God talk as if they regard evil as a defect or flaw, but that is talk for they treat evil as a thing and a reality. We may all tend to treat evil as a flaw but religion with its God does it more than we do.
Why is the kindly doctor who murders after saving millions of lives going to be defined by his crime as if he is substantially evil? Because people feel compelled to demonise him. The only way they can wish his evil out of existence is by seeing that he is the problem. They hate him.
It is odd to say that acts can be truly evil and vile and amount to being evil powers and people cannot. It smacks of hypocrisy for surely the whole point is not so much the action but the person that devises and implements the action. No matter what evil is, it cannot be seen as something that accompanies the person as if there was no connection.
People will not admit if they see people as substantially evil for that is clearly a demand that the persons be destroyed and hated and dehumanised. People do not see the plague as substantially evil but are tempted to see some people as substantially evil. Why is it always people? Because they want it to be.
With that attitude you do not really care about what evil is but what you want it to be. That says something terrible about you!
EVIL WOULD NOT WANT TO BE SEEN AS REAL
Substantial evil will still try to look good if it can to get more recruits and power. So the person might be using substantial evil to do good with it as a cover. If we mistake evil for good that does not mean there is no substantial evil. Substantial evil could still be behind our mistake.
The argument that evil is merely a sad parasite helps make it look less damaging than it is. It could be a cover.
SUBSTANTIAL GOODNESS?
Surely if there are acts of substantial evil, there are acts of substantial goodness too? Surely if there are acts of substantial goodness, there are acts of substantial evil too? Nearly all people would answer yes. It does not matter if they are right. The point is they do believe in substantially evil people and are thinking of people when they think of substantially evil.
WILLING CAPTIVE OR VICTIM?
What about, "If evil really exists then it is a substance that a person taps into but the person avoids being evil herself or himself. She or he does evil but is not evil. The person uses evil or is forced or manipulated by evil"?
But that is not necessarily the case. Substantial evil does not mean that everybody who engages with it and absorbs it is a victim. It can be their fault. The person can be the evil. Surely substantial evil if it knows what it is doing will want to absorb the person? And what if there is no substantially evil except what is in persons?
Anyway, what should you assume then? You cannot know if the sadistic murderer is being controlled by evil helplessly or willing to cooperate with it.
A substantially evil person will pretend that the substantial evil is controlling them and they are the victim. Maybe that is what those who say we must love sinners and hate sins hope we will or would think.
So you assume the person is really being evil.
But what if the evil is the problem as in it does not matter if it is in the person or not? Then what matters is that it is there. The person must be classed as evil for the person will not want to be seen as being the evil. To be responsible and sensible, you cannot risk them trying to fool you.
If evil is substantial you are evil even if you unwillingly or unknowingly are its tool. The rotten fruit has to be thrown out though it is not its fault it got rotten.
The substantial evil in you is one thing but if you consent to it that is another substantial evil so that gives two!
FINALLY
Religion and God make a confusing mess of evil. It's a mass of contradiction. We are asked to see evil as a mere absence of good which contradicts our experience and how evil does act like a substance. This has terrible consequences for how we think of bad people. One is that you don't have anything to understand when an evil is just evil.
Incidentally, the logical argument against God says that any evil simply contradict how he is supposed to be almighty and good. Religion says it is sure the argument fails. But when it cannot get its understanding of evil straight, it should not be so sure.