Reading Forman on Eckhart – evil is the absence of being, it does not exist. This is good scholastic theology but I have always felt that it is a ridiculous thing to say when one is confronted by the appalling reality of evil and suffering. It struck me today, however, that in a very real sense Augustine and Thomas are right – evil is really the absence of being – if you look at things sub specie aeternitate, or from a mystical perspective. The empirical world is an ephemeral world, continually coming into and passing out of existence, replicating itself and evolving as it does so. It is contingent, empty, sunya as the Buddhists put it. What being it has it has from God and, to a greater or lesser extent, reflects something of God. Evil does not emanate from God but from human beings. It spite of its terrible ability to destroy and cause suffering, its existence derives from human perversion. It is doubly contingent, contingent on persons who are themselves contingent on God. If one cannot see beneath the surface of reality then evil is most horribly real. If one can see that reality is translucent and that, however dimly, something of God shines through, then evil (without detracting anything from its power to destroy and pervert what is good) is seen as ultimately insubstantial and unreal.
Evil is parasitic, dependent on corrupted good. When the host dies, evil dies with it. As long as evil has a host it has the power to spread and corrupt others making them hosts. What is good is constantly replicating itself but evil cannot do that. It cannot produce offspring as good can. It can only infect others. Evil is sterile. It leads nowhere. It can produce nothing but suffering, death and destruction.