Marilyn McCord Adams

1. Introduction

Marilyn McCord Adams (1943–2017) was a contemporary analytic philosopher and Anglican priest whose work reshaped debates about evil, divine goodness, and the nature of salvation. Trained in analytic philosophy and medieval studies, she is especially known for introducing the category of horrendous evils—atrocities that prima facie make a person’s life not worth living—and for arguing that any adequate account of God’s goodness must show how such evils are individually and personally “defeated,” not merely outweighed by greater goods.

Her thought sits at the intersection of philosophy of religion, systematic theology, and medieval metaphysics. Drawing heavily on Christian doctrines of the Incarnation, atonement, and eschatological hope, she developed a Christocentric theodicy in which God engages horrors by sharing them in Christ and offering creatures beatific intimacy as the only good great enough to engulf and transform their worst sufferings.

Historically, Adams functioned as a bridge figure: between analytic and historical scholarship through her influential studies of William of Ockham; between academic philosophy and ecclesial life through her roles as priest and Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford; and between abstract argument and lived experience through sustained attention to trauma, abuse, and pastoral practice.

The entry situates her within late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century analytic philosophy, outlines her intellectual development and major works, and analyzes key themes—horrendous evils, divine goodness, Christology, and medieval metaphysics—along with the methodological, critical, and historical debates they have generated.

2. Life and Historical Context

Adams was born on 12 November 1943 in Oak Park, Illinois, and educated in the United States during a period when analytic philosophy was consolidating its dominance in Anglo-American departments. She completed a B.A. at the University of Illinois (1966) and a Ph.D. at Cornell University (1971), entering professional philosophy at a time when few women held senior positions in the field.

Her long tenure at the University of California, Los Angeles (1972–2004) coincided with a resurgence of philosophy of religion in analytic circles, shaped by figures such as Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, and William Alston. Within this milieu, Adams brought distinctive emphases: historical engagement with medieval thinkers, a strong sacramental and ecclesial sensibility, and attention to the extremity of suffering. She was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1987, reflecting and contributing to broader trends in Anglicanism toward the ordination of women and the integration of academic theology with parish ministry.

In 2004 she was appointed Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford and Residentiary Canon of Christ Church Cathedral, placing her in the institutional center of English-language theological scholarship. Her Oxford years unfolded against the backdrop of expanding debates about religious pluralism, trauma studies, and feminist and liberation theologies, with which she engaged to varying degrees.

Her later work emerged amid intensifying public reflection on genocide, systemic abuse, and large-scale atrocities in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Interpreters often see this wider historical environment as one reason her category of “horrendous evils” resonated across philosophy, theology, and pastoral practice.

3. Intellectual Development

Adams’s intellectual development is often described in phases that track both thematic and institutional shifts.

Early Analytic and Medieval Training

At Cornell and in her early years at UCLA, Adams received rigorous training in analytic philosophy and logic while pursuing specialist study in medieval philosophy, especially William of Ockham. She combined close textual work in Latin sources with contemporary questions about modality, individuation, and divine attributes, establishing herself as a historian of philosophy with systematic interests.

Medieval Metaphysics to Philosophy of Religion

During the late 1970s and 1980s her research focused on medieval theories of language, ontology, and divine power. Over this period, she increasingly linked medieval debates about foreknowledge, freedom, and omnipotence with live analytic concerns in philosophy of religion. This set the stage for her later use of medieval resources in addressing the problem of evil.

Integration of Priesthood and Philosophical Theology

Her ordination in 1987 marks a turning point. From the late 1980s through the early 2000s, Adams’s work became more explicitly theological and pastorally inflected. She developed the category of horrendous evils and began to frame theodicy in terms of narrative, person-centered “defeat” of evil, drawing heavily on Christology and soteriology.

Mature Systematic Vision

As Regius Professor at Oxford (2004–2010), Adams articulated a more comprehensive Christian philosophical theology, integrating her earlier work on medieval metaphysics with doctrines of the Eucharist, ecclesiology, and eschatology. She also engaged methodological debates about analytic versus continental and liberationist approaches.

Late Interdisciplinary Engagements

In her final years, Adams deepened engagement with trauma studies, feminist theology, and pastoral theology, refining her account of horror, divine vulnerability, and healing. Commentators sometimes interpret this period as a move from primarily analytic framing toward a more interdisciplinary and experientially oriented style, though she retained her characteristic argumentative rigor.

4. Major Works and Scholarly Output

Adams’s corpus spans medieval scholarship, systematic philosophical theology, and essays in pastoral and ecclesial contexts. Several monographs structure discussions of her thought:

Beyond these, Adams published numerous articles on divine omnipotence, the Trinity, hell, religious experience, and ecclesiology, as well as essays engaging pastoral issues such as abuse and trauma. She also co-edited volumes and contributed to reference works on medieval philosophy.

Scholars often distinguish between her historical-technical writings (especially on Ockham and medieval Eucharistic theories) and her systematic-philosophical theology (on evil, Christology, and salvation), while noting that she herself treated these strands as mutually informing rather than separate enterprises.

5. Core Ideas: Horrendous Evils and Divine Goodness

The central axis of Adams’s mature philosophy of religion is the relation between horrendous evils and divine goodness.

Horrendous Evils

Adams defines horrendous evils as:

"

“the sorts of evils that seem prima facie to make a participant’s life not worth living, because they constitute such an extreme harm that they threaten to engulf and destroy the positive meaning of a person’s life.”

— Marilyn McCord Adams, Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God

Examples include genocide, torture, severe child abuse, and some forms of devastating illness or psychological trauma. She argues that such evils pose a special challenge to theism, beyond the more generic “problem of evil,” because they call into question the worthwhileness of individual lives, not merely the goodness of the world as a whole.

Defeat Rather than Mere Outweighing

Adams introduces defeat of evil as a more demanding requirement than the mere “outweighing” of suffering by greater goods. For God to be good to a person, proponents of her view maintain, it is not enough that their horrors be instrumentally necessary for global goods; instead, those horrors must be integrated into that person’s own life in such a way that, on balance, their life becomes a great good to them.

This defeat is narrative and personal, not merely aggregative or impersonal. Adams contends that only an incommensurably great good—beatific intimacy with God—can engulf horrors so that they become, paradoxically, ingredients in rather than obstacles to a person’s flourishing.

Implications for Divine Goodness

From this framework, Adams concludes that an unsurpassably good God must (i) engage horrors directly, (ii) provide means for their individual defeat, and (iii) orient creation toward an eschatological state in which no person’s life remains horror-engulfed. Critics and sympathizers alike have taken this as a major reconfiguration of what counts as an adequate theodicy.

6. Christology and Theodicy

Adams’s response to horrendous evils is explicitly Christocentric: Christ’s person and work are central to how God confronts and defeats horrors.

Christ’s Identification with Horrors

In Christ and Horrors, Adams argues that, on the Christian narrative, God engages horrors “from the inside” by assuming a human nature in Christ and undergoing crucifixion, abandonment, and death. Proponents of her interpretation hold that Christ’s Passion constitutes a paradigmatic horror, enabling God to share the worst dimensions of creaturely suffering.

"

“On the Christian story, God engages horrendous evils by sharing them from the inside, in Christ, so as to extend to victims a horror-participation in divine life that can engulf and transform even their worst experiences.”

— Marilyn McCord Adams, Christ and Horrors

This identification is not merely empathetic; it is ontological and soteriological, grounding the possibility that victims’ own horrors can be taken up into Christ’s redemptive suffering.

Soteriology as Defeat of Horrors

Adams reconfigures soteriology around the defeat of horrendous evils. Salvation is not only forgiveness of sins or moral improvement; it is the transformation of horror-bearing life stories into lives that are, for each person, great goods on the whole. Through union with Christ—mediated, on her view, by sacramental and ecclesial realities—individuals receive a share in divine life that can surround and reinterpret their horrors.

Coherence of Christology

Her Christology is designed to be compatible with classical doctrines (two natures, one person) while emphasizing Christ’s capacity to be the “horror-bearer” and “horror-defeater” for all creatures. She explores how Christ’s infinite dignity, as divine Son, allows his experiences to have a redemptive scope adequate to engulf creaturely horrors.

Debates around her position include questions about whether such a Christocentric theodicy is available to non-Christians, whether it presupposes a particular metaphysics of union with Christ, and how it relates to or revises traditional atonement theories such as satisfaction, penal substitution, or moral influence.

7. Medieval Metaphysics and Ockham Studies

Adams is regarded as a leading Anglophone interpreter of William of Ockham and later medieval metaphysics. Her work combines historical exactitude with systematic concerns.

Themes in Ockham Scholarship

In William Ockham and William Ockham: Vol. I, Adams examines:

• Foreknowledge and freedom: Ockham’s account of God’s knowledge of future contingents and its compatibility with human freedom.
• Predestination and grace: late medieval disputes about divine choice, merit, and salvation.
• Divine power: the distinction between God’s “absolute” power (what God could do) and “ordained” power (what God actually does, given the established order).

She presents Ockham as a sophisticated thinker about modality and individuation, not merely as a nominalist about universals. Her readings have influenced discussions of how divine omniscience and omnipotence can be reconciled with contingency.

Medieval Metaphysics of Sacraments

In Some Later Medieval Theories of the Eucharist, Adams broadens her focus to Aquinas, Giles of Rome, Duns Scotus, and Ockham on real presence, substance, and accidents. She analyzes competing accounts of how Christ’s body and blood are present in the Eucharist, relating these to broader metaphysical commitments about substance, quantity, and causal powers.

Systematic Use of Medieval Resources

Adams brings medieval metaphysics into conversation with contemporary debates. Proponents of her approach highlight how she:

While some historians question aspects of her reconstruction of Ockham or stress alternative readings, there is broad agreement that she significantly raised the profile of later medieval thought within analytic philosophy and theological metaphysics.

8. Methodology in Philosophical Theology

Adams’s work is methodologically distinctive in its combination of analytic rigor, historical depth, and pastoral sensitivity.

Analytic Structure with Narrative Content

She employs analytic tools—careful definitions, explicit argumentation, and attention to logical coherence—to treat topics such as evil, Christology, and sacraments. At the same time, she insists that philosophical theology must reckon with narrative: individual life stories, scriptural narratives, and ecclesial practices. Her notion of the “defeat” of horrors is inherently narrative, focusing on how events are situated within personal and cosmic stories.

Integration of Historical Theology

Adams treats medieval theology not merely as background but as a live resource. Her methodology involves reconstructing historical positions (e.g., Ockham on foreknowledge, Scotus on Eucharist) and then testing their systematic fruitfulness for contemporary problems. This makes her a representative of a historically informed analytic philosophical theology.

Pastoral and Experiential Accountability

A further feature is explicit accountability to the experiences of sufferers, especially survivors of horrendous evils. She argues that theological claims about God’s goodness must be credible “before the faces” of such persons. This leads her to engage with psychology and trauma literature, and to evaluate doctrines partly by their capacity to address extreme suffering without trivialization.

"

“Theology that ignores survivors of horrendous evils, that refuses to listen to their stories, risks becoming an accomplice of those very horrors.”

— Marilyn McCord Adams (pastoral writings)

Confessional yet Public

Adams works self-consciously within a Christian, and specifically Anglican, confessional framework, while aiming to formulate arguments that can be assessed in a broader philosophical forum. Interpreters variously describe her stance as “confessional analytic theology” or “public Christian philosophy,” and debate how fully her arguments can be detached from specifically Christian premises.

9. Impact on Philosophy of Religion and Theology

Adams’s influence spans several subfields and intellectual communities.

Reframing the Problem of Evil

Her distinction between ordinary and horrendous evils redirected much analytic discussion of theodicy. Subsequent literature on evil frequently adopts, adapts, or challenges her categories, with many philosophers examining whether traditional theodicies—soul-making, free-will, greater-good—can satisfy her stricter requirement of personal defeat.

Christology and Soteriology in Analytic Mode

Adams is often cited as a major figure in the rise of analytic theology, particularly in Christology and soteriology. Her work demonstrated how detailed doctrinal topics (Incarnation, atonement, Eucharist) could be treated with analytic precision while remaining attentive to classical and medieval sources, influencing later projects in analytic trinitarian theology, sacramental theology, and doctrine of hell.

Reviving Medieval Metaphysics

Her Ockham studies and Eucharist book contributed to a broader revival of medieval metaphysics in contemporary philosophy. Discussions of divine foreknowledge, modality, individuation, and divine power frequently reference her reconstructions of later medieval debates.

Cross-Disciplinary and Pastoral Influence

In theology and religious studies, Adams’s horror-framework has been taken up in pastoral theology, trauma studies, and feminist theology, where scholars explore its implications for liturgy, spiritual care, and ecclesial responses to abuse and systemic violence. Some see her insistence on God’s intimate engagement with horrors as a resource for liberationist or survivor-centered theologies.

Her positions have become reference points in debates about hell and universalism, divine vulnerability, and the moral character of God, shaping both supportive and critical conversations in contemporary theology and philosophy of religion.

10. Reception, Criticisms, and Debates

Adams’s work has generated extensive discussion, both appreciative and critical.

Assessments of the Horror-Defeat Framework

Many philosophers and theologians praise her focus on horrendous evils as morally serious and pastorally attentive. They adopt her requirement that theodicies be person-centered and ask whether their own theories can provide narrative defeat for victims.

Critics raise several questions:

Christology and Atonement

Theologically, some praise her for making Christology central to the problem of evil and for highlighting divine solidarity with sufferers. Critics question whether:

• Her emphasis on horror-bearing risks overshadowing other biblical atonement motifs.
• Her account adequately addresses systemic and structural evil, not only individual life stories.
• The metaphysics of union with Christ she presupposes is sufficiently developed or ecumenically shareable.

Use of Medieval Sources

Historians of philosophy generally regard Adams’s Ockham work as path-breaking but debate details of her interpretations. Alternative readings of Ockham on universals, foreknowledge, or Eucharist sometimes challenge her reconstructions. Some scholars also query how far medieval positions can be straightforwardly imported into contemporary analytic frameworks.

Method and Confessional Stance

Finally, Adams’s explicitly Christian commitments raise methodological debates. Supporters see her as exemplifying confessional philosophical theology that is nonetheless publicly arguable. Others question whether her conclusions about divine goodness or evil’s defeat can be endorsed without sharing substantial Christian doctrinal assumptions, and what this implies for interreligious or secular philosophical dialogue.

11. Legacy and Historical Significance

Adams’s legacy is multifaceted, touching institutional, thematic, and methodological dimensions of contemporary thought.

Place in Philosophy of Religion and Theology

She is widely regarded as a pivotal figure in late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century philosophy of religion, particularly for reframing the problem of evil around horrendous evils and insisting on person-centered, narrative theodicy. Many subsequent discussions of evil, divine goodness, and eschatology take her work as a standard point of reference, whether in agreement or critique.

In theology, Adams is seen as a forerunner and exemplar of analytic theology, especially in Christology and sacramental theology. Her integration of medieval sources, analytic tools, and pastoral concerns has influenced a generation of scholars working at the intersection of doctrine and philosophy.

Historical Role as Scholar-Priest

As one of the first women to occupy the Regius Professorship of Divinity at Oxford and to serve simultaneously as a cathedral canon, Adams holds a notable place in the history of Anglican theology and academic theology more broadly. Her dual identity as analytic philosopher and priest has been cited as a model for integrating rigorous scholarship with ecclesial and pastoral commitments.

Ongoing Influence and Prospects

Her concepts of horrendous evils, defeat, and beatific intimacy continue to shape work in trauma theology, pastoral care, and liturgical studies, as well as philosophical debates about the moral character of God and the coherence of doctrines such as hell. Posthumous publications and secondary literature suggest a growing interest in extending her framework to issues such as animal suffering, ecological devastation, and systemic injustice.

Historically, Adams is increasingly viewed as a key figure in the movement that reconnected analytic philosophy with thick doctrinal and historical resources, and as a major voice ensuring that discussions of God and evil remain accountable to the extremities of lived human experience.