From a netfriend:

It seems to me that if evil is the absence of God then our understanding of Jesus as the incarnation of God might be undermined. As I understand it, evil is part of our experience of existence. The potential for evil is inherent in every aspect of our existence. Every good thing, other than God, if it is made into an absolute can become evil. So, evil is a threat at every level of our existence. Paul Tillich called it the threat of non-being. The tension between being and non-being is inherent in everything that exists.

If the doctrine of incarnation is held to be true for us, then we must say that God entered our existence in Jesus. God, in Jesus, became subject to the limitations of existence, including the threat of evil.

How could this be if evil is the absence of God? If this were so, God would by necessity have been unable to enter existence and Jesus as the Christ would be meaningless. As I understand it, God exposed God’s self to the threat of evil by sharing existence with us. Thus, both evil and God can be present at the same time. If not, what hope is there for us?