Marilyn McCord Adams
Encyclopedia
Philosophy of religion
Philosophy of religion is a branch of philosophy concerned with questions regarding religion, including the nature and existence of God, the examination of religious experience, analysis of religious language and texts, and the relationship of religion and science...
, philosophical theology
Philosophical Theology
Philosophical theology is the disciplined employment of philosophical methods in developing or analyzing theological concepts. It therefore includes natural theology as well as philosophical treatments of orthodox and heterodox theology....
and medieval philosophy
Medieval philosophy
Medieval philosophy is the philosophy in the era now known as medieval or the Middle Ages, the period roughly extending from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century AD to the Renaissance in the sixteenth century...
.
Family
Adams is the daughter of William Clark McCord and Wilmah Brown McCord. In 1966, she married the philosopher Robert Merrihew Adams.Education
Adams was educated at the University of Illinois (AB); Cornell University (PhD 1967); and Princeton Theological Seminary (ThM 1984, 1985); and holds the degree of Doctor of Divinity from the University of Oxford (2008).Career
Since 1 July 2009, Adams has been a Distinguished Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel HillUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...
. Before that she was, in reverse chronological order, the Regius Professor of Divinity
Regius Professor of Divinity
The Regius Professorship of Divinity is one of the oldest and most prestigious of the professorships at the University of Oxford and at the University of Cambridge.Both chairs were founded by Henry VIII...
at Oxford University, the Horace Tracy Pitkin Professor of Historical Theology at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, and a Professor of Philosophy at UCLA. She is also a former President of the Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy
Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy
The Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy is a learned society established in 1978 to support teaching and research relating to medieval and renaissance philosophy. Presidents of the society have included Arthur Hyman, Marilyn Adams, James Ross, Jorge Gracia, Mary Clark, and R. James Long....
.
Adams was ordained priest in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America in 1987 and was until recently a canon
Canon (priest)
A canon is a priest or minister who is a member of certain bodies of the Christian clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule ....
of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford
Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford
Christ Church Cathedral is the cathedral of the diocese of Oxford, which consists of the counties of Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire. It is also, uniquely, the chapel of Christ Church, a college of the University of Oxford.-History:...
.
Work and writing
Adams' work in philosophy has focused on the philosophy of religion, especially the problem of evilProblem of evil
In the philosophy of religion, the problem of evil is the question of how to explain evil if there exists a deity that is omnibenevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient . Some philosophers have claimed that the existences of such a god and of evil are logically incompatible or unlikely...
, philosophical theology, metaphysics and medieval philosophy. Her work on the problem of evil largely focuses on what she calls "horrendous evils". She is an avowed Christian universalist
Universal reconciliation
In Christian theology, universal reconciliation is the doctrine that all sinful and alienated human souls—because of divine love and mercy—will ultimately be reconciled to God.Universal salvation may be related to the perception of a problem of Hell, standing opposed to ideas...
, believing that ultimately all will receive salvation and restoration in Christ:
Traditional doctrines of hellHellIn many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
err again by supposing either that God does not get what God wants with every human being ("God wills all humans to be saved" by God's antecedent will) or that God deliberately creates some for ruin. To be sure, many human beings have conducted their ante-mortem lives in such a way as to become anti-social persons. Almost none of us dies with all the virtues needed to be fit for heaven. Traditional doctrines of hell suppose that God lacks the will or the patience or the resourcefulness to civilize each and all of us, to rear each and all of us up into the household of God. They conclude that God is left with the option of merely human penal systems--viz., liquidation or quarantine!
Adams has argued for the legitimacy of homosexual, as well as heterosexual relationships, in Christian ethical theory
Christian ethics
The first recorded meeting on the topic of Christian ethics, after Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, Great Commandment, and Great Commission , was the Council of Jerusalem , which is seen by most Christians as agreement that the New Covenant either abrogated or set aside at least some of the Old...
.
See also
- Theology Faculty of the University of OxfordTheology Faculty of the University of OxfordThe Faculty of Theology, University of Oxford, co-ordinates the teaching of theology at the University of Oxford, England.The Theology Faculty Centre is at 34 St Giles' in central Oxford.- History :...
- American philosophyAmerican philosophyAmerican philosophy is the philosophical activity or output of Americans, both within the United States and abroad. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes that while American philosophy lacks a "core of defining features, American Philosophy can nevertheless be seen as both reflecting and...
- List of American philosophers
External links
- Marilyn McCord Adams' faculty page at Oxford University
- Sermon on issues in human sexuality (2004)
- Episode of In Our Time (May 2007), "Ockham's Razor." BBC Radio 4.
- Interview with Philosophy Bites on evil and optimism