 If the argument from evil is given an evidential formulation, what form should that take? There appear to be four main possibilities that have been suggested in recent discussions. The first, which might be called the direct inductive approach, involves the idea that one can show that theism is unlikely to be true without comparing theism with any alternative hypothesis, other than the mere denial of theism.  At the heart of this first approach, which was set out by William Rowe, is the idea that one sound type of inductive inference is what might be referred to as instantial generalization, where this is a matter of projecting a generalization that has been found to hold in all cases that have been so far examined to all cases whatever.