Do we find it fitting or in essence ironic that for being gone for almost a year, this entry should have "absence" in the title? Perhaps. That aside, let's begin.
An official "Theory of Absence" I have not found upon Googling the internet. However, that is not to say that some of the ideas discussed below have not been thought and/or published before. It merely means that I (in as little research as I have done) have not found those ideas. Therefore, this theory has been developed in my own head without help from any other individual.
My Theory of Absence could also be considered a Theory of Opposites, for the theory only genuinely works when two things are involved and no more. The theory is that some things in the existent world can only exist when something is missing. These things themselves do not have form. They are not forces. In fact, they do no exist and cannot be named until the form that exists opposite of them disappears.
Let me give a concrete example: light and dark. Light, I believe we can conclude, is an existing form of matter. It may not be physical, solid matter, able to be captured and wrapped by our human hands. But it is something that can be measured, directed, or even quelled. You will recall with me that Einstein based his Theory of Relativity upon the basis that light can be measured and calculated. Astronomers today still assume this when they measure things in light years. Directing light is as simple as putting a shade over it. A lamp or a flashlight is the perfect example. And at the flick of a switch or the push of a button, light is no more. At least that is how it works in our electrified society.
Dark, on the other hand, lacks physical qualities. Darkness cannot be measured. Oh, sure, you might say it was so dark I could not see my hand in front of my face. As opposed to other dark when you can see your hand in front of your face. But you cannot say this measurement is how far darkness travels in a year. Darkness cannot be directed. You cannot put a shade around the dark and point it to a very illuminated corner of your room. Darkness can, however, be quelled. And how is this done? By turning on a light. As light exists, so dark disappears.
But now you will see that dark cannot exist until light disappears. The only reason you can sometimes see your hand in front of your face when it is dark is simply because there is a source of light, however small it may be. As long as light is around, darkness cannot exist. Light always overpowers dark, and no amount of darkness may overpower light. The theory of absence here is that darkness only exists in the absence of light.
Such thinking may be applied elsewhere. Think of empty and full. You cannot measure how empty a cup is other than to say "That cup has not one drop in it." You may measure the volume of a cup, yes. But that only tells us how full it can become before it overflows. The only reason a cup is empty is because nothing fills it. Once that cup is full, emptiness no longer exists. Think, too, of your stomach. When you lack food, it is empty and hungry. Hunger exists only in the absence of food. Hunger cannot be measured. Food can, as well as how much food your stomach can handle, as proved every year by the holiday we Americans call Thanksgiving.
Truth be told, the main reason I developed this theory was due to my pursuits in theology. As with everything good in this world, I believe the theory of absence has a metaphysical origin. I was one day a while ago that I thought of the relationship between God and evil or love and evil. **Here God and love are one and the same since according to scripture God is love.** I remember asking myself, "Is evil an actual force? I mean, does evil exist in such a way that it might physically butt heads with Almighty God himself?" My answer in simple terms is "No." Evil is not a measurable force or thing. You might quickly respond to that by saying that love and God are not measurable forces. Yes, I agree, you cannot captured God by putting a lampshade on him. But if you dispute with me whether or not God exists...well, we shall have to take up intellectual arms against each other.
No, I theorize that evil only exists in the absence of God/love. If someone is evil, it is because he or she lacks the presence of God in their life. Evil cannot exist in the presence of God because he is holy. Take, for example, the very first people on earth, the parents of all humans according to the Holy Bible -- Adam and Eve. When they were first created they only knew good; they only knew God and love for each other and love for God. Where did they go wrong? Simply put they disobeyed God. When they ate the fruit they did not keep God first in their lives. When they ate the fruit God was not present. Therefore they made their own decision. Upon making that decision, evil could be named for the first time. But evil could only be named because Adam and Eve kept God away and out of their decision-making process.
To this you may answer that there exist the Evil One, known by many names, the most popular of which is probably Satan. And yes, you are correct. I do not deny that Satan exists. And yes, many people and instances may argue that he is not only evil, but the embodiment of evil. But I ask you, how did Satan get this way? He challenged God. He decided that he did not need the presence of God in his life and therefore chose to removed God's presence. In turn Satan was removed from God's presence through which he inherently exists as evil due to the lack of God's existence.
You may also point out that Satan was around in the Garden of Eden and therefore evil must have existed before Adam and Eve brought it around by eating the fruit. But I ask you to read your scriptures more carefully. Genesis says the serpent was the "craftiest" of all creatures, not evil.
You may also point out that God names the tree "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." But Adam and Eve did not know evil until they disobeyed God and ate of the fruit. Only by removing God's will from their lives were they able to know what evil was.
Might point of all this theorizing is to encourage my fellow Christians who may get down and discouraged, feeling overwhelmed by the Evil One. I believe that evil is not a physical force. Yes, it may seem that life can turn bad very quickly at times and for sustained periods at other times. This is because our world rejects the presence of God. Remember that the light has come into the darkness but the darkness has not understood it. Therefore I tell you that if you are feeling overwhelmed by the darkness, by evil, that you must push to find God and bring him ever closer and nearer to you and those around you. It may be hard. We do not fully understand and cannot comprehend how God works. But I do know that God only wants good for his children. That good may come in different forms, but evil only exists in the absence of God. Bring God close and evil must inherently disappear. Bring the Light into existence and the darkness can be no more.
