The limits of explanation

Last year Professor Bart Ehrman of the University of North Carolina cranked out yet another book, God’s Problem. Dr. Ehrman breathlessly announces that he has discovered that God has a big problem – suffering.
Ehrman dismisses various futile attempts on the part of God to explain
why there is suffering, pain, and disaster in the world – the Book of
Job, Ecclesiastes, and Jesus. Unsurprisingly, Dr. Ehrman reaches the
conclusion that God comes up short in regard to a plausible explanation
for suffering. Dr. Ehrman says that, even though he personally does not
believe in God, he can’t figure out why so many otherwise intelligent
people persist in the notion that God is good – look at all the
suffering that God can’t explain.

Now,
I’m all for explanations, have attempted some of them myself. I have
spent much of my life trying to figure out answers to some of life’s
toughest questions, write books on what I’ve discovered, and convey
explanations to my students and my parishioners.

In the past two weeks I’ve learned again that terrible, destructive, undeserved tragedies are, on the whole, inexplicable.