 Skeptical theism  notes that the basis of the argument from evil is often, perhaps always, an inference from what is not seen, a “noseeum” inference: “I don’t see a reason God could have for allowing evil, so there isn’t one.” Sometimes inferences of that sort are good ones, as when I infer that there are no elephants in the classroom on the basis of the fact that I don’t see any. But often inferences of that sort are fallacious, as when I infer that there are no germs in the room on the basis of the fact that I don’t see any. The difference seems to be, roughly speaking, that I would expect to see any elephants if there were any, but I wouldn’t expect to see the germs. Which are God’s reasons most like, the elephants or the germs? Arguably, given the epistemic distance between God and man, his reasons would be more like the germs, and so the fact that we can’t identify a reason for God to allow evil doesn’t justify the inference that there is no such reason. Such, in outline, is the basic idea behind skeptical theism. (See Dougherty and McBrayer 2014 for debate over the view.)