Which is where I also feel the need to butt in. I'm also going to wave the poor theologian, terrible at self-examination flag, but my response is "why does there have to be an answer?" I like (and want) a nice answer tied up in a neat bow, just as much as the next woman. But I'm also old enough to know that life rarely hands us nice, neat answers, especially to the big theological/philosophical questions like these. Through a glass darkly, now I know in part, and all of that...

Long question short, does there have to be an answer? Life doesn't go that way for most of us, so why should/would I expect you clever writers to be able to answer all of the biggies for me? For mine, it comes back to doing the best I can with what I have been given - and surely that is all that any one of us can do.