Evidential Problem of Evil
The evidential problem of evil is an a posteriori approach that begins with our own experience of evil and suffering and then look for the best possible explanation for our observations. It focuses on both the presence of natural and moral evil in the world and questions why God would create the universe knowing such examples of evil and suffering would occur.
John Stuart Mill argues that the natural world is full of evidence of evil, giving powerful examples of the way in which people and other animals suffer. He argues against those who use a posteriori arguments in support of the existence of a good God, claiming that the evidence rather points to a sadistic God. He writes that the things we punish humans for, nature does every day, such as killing and torture. In saying this, he argues against supporters of the teleological arguments such as William Paley.
He thus uses this argument to support the view that if there is a God, He does not seem to be benevolent – we cannot look to Him or to nature as a guide for our own moral behaviour, and we cannot worship him for His goodness.
William L. Rowe also gave some examples of evil. "In some distant forest lightning strikes a dead tree, resulting in a forest fire. In the fire a fawn is trapped, horribly burned, and lies in terrible agony for several days before death relieves its suffering." Arguably, God could have prevented this suffering, but doesn’t. Rowe also cites the example of human evil where an innocent child is a victim of violence and thereby suffers.
The evidential problem of evil can be considered to be weak as we cannot disprove God like the logical problem, we can only make His existence less probable. We also cannot compare our experiences to God, epistemic distance means we can’t understand him so we cannot objectively measure the probability of Him existing.