Absence of Evidence and Evidence of Absence

I  defend  the  first  premise  of  William  Rowe’s  well-known  arguments  from evil against influential criticisms due to William Alston. I next suggest that the central  inference  in  Rowe’s  arguments  is  best  understood  to  move  from  the  claim  that  we  have  an  absence  of  evidence  of  a  satisfactory  theodicy  to  the  claim  that  we  have evidence of absence of such a theodicy. I endorse the view which holds that this move succeeds only if it is reasonable to believe that (roughly) if there were such a theodicy,  we  would  probably  know  it.  After  conceding  that  there  may  be  modest  prima facie support for this latter claim via the Principle of Credulity, I consider and reject  four  more  ambitious  arguments  in  its  favour.  I  conclude  that  this  necessary  condition on Rowe’s crucial inference has not been shown to be satisfied.