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.
Substantial evil is the notion that evil is a power or energy. It is the claim that evil is a noun and is as real as electricity. It says it is not just something falling short of its good potential - a lack of good or absence. It is a power in its own right just like good is.
Christianity enunciates that evil is just a failed good and is not a thing or power. It claims that all things came from the good God so God did not make evil. If evil always existed then God is not really a God for he has no power against it. So it rejects the notion of substantial evil. It argues that even Satan has enough good in him for as evil is nothing that would mean that anything that was substantial evil would be nothing - non-existent.
That argument is just words. It sounds profound and that is its secret. But in our hearts, and because of the way we are wired, we feel and know that to argue that the most evil being in the universe is the one that is closest to slipping out of existence is incorrect. And we should be offended if we are hurt in life and have to listen to it being trivialised by such incoherent confused talk.
One may say, "Science knows when you are trying to hurt somebody. Hurting is a matter for science. While morality is said to be different from hurting, hurting is an ingredient of it. So science has something to say about that part of morality. Morality works with what is there so if that is all the far you can get that makes causing pain as good as the same as immorality." So science if it could give you morality would give an irreligious pragmatic one.
Religion says science cannot give you a morality but even if it could give you something close enough who cares? Only religion cares and that is for ideological reasons.
Religion says that atheists by saying that suffering and evil refute God are saying that evil and suffering are purely bad. They are not good that is missing something. They are just bad.
It is true that many atheists do reason like that and many more do it without realising it.
Religion says that whatever evil is, real or not, the atheist is evil for holding that evil is so intolerable and bad that it shows there cannot be a loving God. It accuses the atheist of robbing people of a sense of God's love and of being an attacker of the God who holds us in his heart.
Science says you are trying to hurt atheists by saying their approach to substantial evil is evil. Religion must think it is not immoral to hurt atheists.
For science, evil and immoral are not useful concepts. Science can only think about how we find certain actions and behaviours undesirable.
The reason is science is about the physical and there is no test for showing that pride is a bad thing or that everybody should be humble and see their flaws.
Largely, science has been lured by religion to regard substantial evil as nonsense and to think of evil as more abstract. Real science has to assume that it can test evil if evil is a power. It has to assume that it might find substantial evil tomorrow. Also, even if evil is an abstract thing that behaves remarkably like a power then science can still test for it.
If testable evil is out there that does not mean science can find it. But it does mean that science has to assume that evil may not be abstract but pure or near to it so that there may be something that in theory can be tested.
Suppose such evil clearly can be found in nature.
Then it becomes subject to science. Science has to look for evil. Also, it would be a priority for science has to be practical. Science is best concentrating on existential threats and that would be a big one. That science worries more about meteorites and nuclear accidents is not the point. The point is what you would expect careful science to spend the most time on.
A killer infection that is evil can be tested. And also the evil person who murders.
If substantial evil exists then you cannot say, "Evil as in what should be condemned only exists in people. You cannot call bacteria criminal or sinful or evil in the way you can people." Moral evil and natural evil, eg earthquakes in densely populated areas, are just different forms of one evil, substantial evil.
What if science ignores testable evil? Science then is evil for anything that does not recognise that evil is there and needs identifying is evil itself.
Evil is danger so the worst form of it is the person who does not see it as real. That person is among its best friends.
Pure or testable evil can look good and its disciples can probably look even better!
To conclude,
Evil may be a testable force. If it is something else, it may act like such a force and not be. In either case it can in principle be examined by science.
Not all science ignores the possibility of such evil. Also science has no right to assume evil is a mere abstract. It has to assume that evil may be real so that it can test it and it has to keep looking for it.
Religion says that evil if it is a real power would overthrow the notion of an all-good creator of all who is the answer to, "Why is there anything at all?" He would have to make that evil or if he didn't he is not really much of a God for there is something else there, something terrible, that always existed and has nothing to do with him.
This shows that science and God are indeed in conflict. To serve one is to oppose the other even if you do not realise it.
Science cannot be asked to define evil as a mere lack of good. Religion tacitly expects it to. Science has to test not assume even if it were obvious that evil were just a lack. If it cannot test substantial evil, it has to be agnostic until it can. Why? For substantial evil proves there is no God and it is unable to prove substantial evil.
Those who say that evil is substantial hold that evil and its instruments will only let you see the tip of the iceberg. Those who say that evil is merely a distortion of good, would agree. Evil cloaks itself among good things. As evil is a lie as the book People of the Lie by Peck spells out, and leads to lies, it is clear that science has to dismiss its power. Religion affirms its power. Science and religion then are not agreeable at all when honestly assessed.
Surely a religion that even opens the door to opposing those who suspect or affirm that evil is substantial is hardly good?