Marilyn McCord Adams (October 12, 1943–March 22, 2017) was an

American philosopher This is a list of American philosophers; of philosophers who are either from, or spent many productive years of their lives in the United States. {, border="0" style="margin:auto;" class="toccolours" , - ! {{MediaWiki:Toc , - , style="text-ali ...

and

Episcopal Episcopal may refer to: *Of or relating to a bishop, an overseer in the Christian church *Episcopate, the see of a bishop – a diocese *Episcopal Church (disambiguation), any church with "Episcopal" in its name ** Episcopal Church (United State ...

priest. She specialized in the

philosophy of religion Philosophy of religion is "the philosophical examination of the central themes and concepts involved in religious traditions". Philosophical discussions on such topics date from ancient times, and appear in the earliest known texts concerning ph ...

philosophical theology Philosophical theology is both a branch and form of theology in which philosophical methods are used in developing or analyzing theological concepts. It therefore includes natural theology as well as philosophical treatments of orthodox and heter ...

, and

medieval philosophy Medieval philosophy is the philosophy that existed through the Middle Ages, the period roughly extending from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century until after the Renaissance in the 13th and 14th centuries. Medieval philosophy, ...

. She was Horace Tracy Pitkin Professor of Historical Theology at

Yale Divinity School Yale Divinity School (YDS) is one of the twelve graduate and professional schools of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Congregationalist theological education was the motivation at the founding of Yale, and the professional school has ...

from 1998 to 2003 and Regius Professor of Divinity at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

from 2004 to 2009.

Early life and education

Adams was born on October 12, 1943, in Oak Park,

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

, United States. She was the daughter of William Clark McCord and Wilmah Brown McCord. In 1966, she married the philosopher

Robert Merrihew Adams Robert Merrihew Adams (born September 8, 1937) is an American analytic philosopher, specializing in metaphysics, philosophy of religion, ethics, and the history of early modern philosophy. Life and career Adams was born on September 8, 1937, ...

. Adams was educated at the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Universit ...

, graduating with a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

(AB) degree. She continued her studies at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

, completing her

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common Academic degree, degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields ...

(PhD) degree in 1967. She undertook studies and training for

ordained ministry Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the denominational hierarchy composed of other clergy) to perform vario ...

Princeton Theological Seminary Princeton Theological Seminary (PTSem), officially The Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church, is a private school of theology in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1812 under the auspices of Archibald Alexander, the General Assembly of ...

, graduating with a

Master of Theology Master of Theology ( la, Theologiae Magister, abbreviated MTh, ThM, or MTheol) is a post-graduate degree offered by universities, divinity schools, and seminaries. It can serve as a transition degree for entrance into a PhD program or as a stand ...

degree in 1984. She was awarded a

Doctor of Divinity A Doctor of Divinity (D.D. or DDiv; la, Doctor Divinitatis) is the holder of an advanced academic degree in divinity. In the United Kingdom, it is considered an advanced doctoral degree. At the University of Oxford, doctors of divinity are ran ...

(DD) by the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

in 2008, thereby becoming the first woman to become an Oxford DD.

Career

Academic career

Adams spent the majority of her academic career at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

: she was an

associate professor Associate professor is an academic title with two principal meanings: in the North American system and that of the ''Commonwealth system''. Overview In the ''North American system'', used in the United States and many other countries, it is a ...

(1972–1978) and then

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

of philosophy from 1978 to 1993, and chair of the Department of Philosophy between 1985 and 1987. She was President of the

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, J ...

from 1980 to 1982. Having moved to

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

, she was professor of

historical theology Historical theology is the study of the history of Christian doctrine. Stanley Grenz, Grenz, Guretzki and Nordling describe it as, "The division of the theological discipline that seeks to understand and delineate how the church interpreted Scri ...

from 1993 to 2003 and the

Horace Tracy Pitkin Horace Tracy Pitkin (1869–1900) was a missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions who was killed in China during the Boxer Uprising in 1900. Yale China Mission, (now the Yale-China Association), was founded in his memo ...

Professor of Historical Theology at

from 1998 to 2003. In 2004, Adams moved to England where she had been appointed Regius Professor of Divinity at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. The chair is linked to a canonry at

Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford Christ Church Cathedral is the cathedral of the Anglican diocese of Oxford, which consists of the counties of Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire. It is also the chapel of Christ Church, a college of the University of Oxford. This dual r ...

, and so she also became a

residentiary canon A canon (from the Latin , itself derived from the Greek language, Greek , , "relating to a rule", "regular") is a member of certain bodies in subject to an canon law, ecclesiastical rule. Originally, a canon was a cleric living with others in a ...

. She was the first woman and the first American to be appointed the Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford. In 2009, after five years abroad, she returned to the United States to join the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...

as a distinguished research professor of philosophy. She moved to

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...

, where she was a visiting/distinguished research professor from 2013 to 2015. Adams was elected a

Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

in 2015. Adams was a cofounder and president of the

Society of Christian Philosophers The Society of Christian Philosophers (SCP) was founded in 1978. The society is open to anyone interested in philosophy who considers himself or herself a Christian. Membership is not restricted to any particular "school" of philosophy or to any ...

Ordained ministry

Adams was

ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the denominational hierarchy composed of other clergy) to perform va ...

as a

deacon A deacon is a member of the diaconate, an office in Christian churches that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions. Major Christian churches, such as the Catholic Churc ...

and

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particu ...

in the

Episcopal Church (United States) The Episcopal Church, based in the United States with additional dioceses elsewhere, is a member church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. It is a mainline Protestant denomination and is divided into nine provinces. The presiding bishop o ...

in 1987. She served at parish churches in Los Angeles,

New Haven New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

Chapel Hill Chapel Hill or Chapelhill may refer to: Places Antarctica * Chapel Hill (Antarctica) Australia *Chapel Hill, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane *Chapel Hill, South Australia, in the Mount Barker council area Canada * Chapel Hill, Ottawa, a neighbo ...

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

, and Trenton,

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. From 2004 to 2009, she served as a

. During that time, she was elected as a university representative to the

General Synod of the Church of England The General Synod is the tricameral deliberative and legislative organ of the Church of England. The synod was instituted in 1970, replacing the Church Assembly, and is the culmination of a process of rediscovering self-government for the Church ...

Work and writing

Adams' work in philosophy focused on the

, especially the

problem of evil The problem of evil is the question of how to reconcile the existence of evil and suffering with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God.The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,The Problem of Evil, Michael TooleyThe Internet Encyclope ...

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

, and

. Her work on the problem of evil largely focused on what she calls "horrendous evils". She was an avowed

Christian universalist Christian universalism is a school of Christian theology focused around the doctrine of universal reconciliation – the view that all human beings will ultimately be saved and restored to a right relationship with God. "Christian universalism" ...

, believing that ultimately all will receive salvation and restoration in Christ:

Traditional doctrines of
hell In religion and folklore, hell is a location in the afterlife in which evil souls are subjected to punitive suffering, most often through torture, as eternal punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hell ...
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!

Personal life

In 1966, Marilyn McCord married

. Adams died on March 22, 2017, in

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine ...

, New Jersey, aged 73; she had had cancer.

Works

* Adams, Marilyn McCord. "Is the Existence of God a 'Hard' Fact?". ''The Philosophical Review'' Vol. LXXVI, No. 4 (October 1967) 492-503. * Adams, Marilyn McCord, trans. ''

Paul of Venice Paul of Venice (or Paulus Venetus; 1369–1429) was a Catholic philosopher, theologian, logician and metaphysician of the Order of Saint Augustine. Life Paul was born, according to the chroniclers of his order, at Udine, about 1369 and died at Ve ...

, On the Truth and Falsity of Propositions and On the Significatum of a Proposition'', ed. Francesco del Punta. London: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1977. * Adams, Marilyn McCord and Norman Kretzman, eds. and trans.

William Ockham William of Ockham, OFM (; also Occam, from la, Gulielmus Occamus; 1287 – 10 April 1347) was an English Franciscan friar, scholastic philosopher, apologist, and Catholic theologian, who is believed to have been born in Ockham, a small vill ...

's ''

Predestination Predestination, in theology, is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God, usually with reference to the eventual fate of the individual soul. Explanations of predestination often seek to address the paradox of free will, whereby G ...

, God's Foreknowledge, and Future Contingents''. 2nd ed. Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett, 1983. * Adams, Marilyn McCord. ''William of Ockham'' (2 vols.) Notre Dame, Indiana: Notre Dame University Press, 1987. * Adams, Marilyn McCord, and Robert Merrihew Adams, eds. ''The Problem of Evil''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. * Adams, Marilyn McCord. ''Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God''. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999. . * Adams, Marilyn McCord. "What Sort of Human Nature? Medieval Philosophy and the Systematics of Christology" (Aquinas Lecture 1999). Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1999. * Adams, Marilyn McCord. ''Christ and Horrors: The Coherence of Christology''. Based on the Gifford Lectures for 1998–1999. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. * Adams, Marilyn McCord. ''Some Later Medieval Theories of the Eucharist:

Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism; he is known wi ...

Giles of Rome Giles of Rome O.S.A. (Latin: ''Aegidius Romanus''; Italian: ''Egidio Colonna''; c. 1243 – 22 December 1316), was a Medieval philosopher and Scholastic theologian and a friar of the Order of St Augustine, who was also appointed to the pos ...

Duns Scotus John Duns Scotus ( – 8 November 1308), commonly called Duns Scotus ( ; ; "Duns the Scot"), was a Scottish Catholic priest and Franciscan friar, university professor, philosopher, and theologian. He is one of the four most important ...

, and William Ockham''. New York:

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 2010.

References

External links

McCord Adams' faculty page at Oxford University

Episode of ''In Our Time'' (May 2007), "Ockham's Razor", BBC Radio 4.

On Adams' "aesthetic" theodicy.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Adams, Marilyn Maccord 1943 births 2017 deaths 20th-century American Episcopal priests 20th-century American philosophers 20th-century Christian universalists 21st-century American Episcopal priests 21st-century American philosophers 21st-century Christian universalists American Christian universalists American Episcopal theologians American women philosophers Analytic philosophers Anglican philosophers Anglican universalists Christian universalist clergy Christian universalist theologians Cornell University alumni Deaths from cancer in New Jersey Women Anglican clergy Philosophers of religion Presidents of the Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy Presidents of the Society of Christian Philosophers Princeton Theological Seminary alumni Regius Professors of Divinity (University of Oxford) Scholars of medieval philosophy University of California, Los Angeles faculty University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty Yale University faculty 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers

Early life and education

Career

Academic career

Ordained ministry

Work and writing

Personal life

Works

See also

References

External links