Marilyn McCord Adams: Christ and the Defeat of Horrors

What is it about?

Mariliyn McCord Adams (October 12, 1943-March 22, 2017). She was Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford University, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. She presents a distinctive approach to salvation in Christ relative to the defeat of horrors. This essay considers McCord's book Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God (1999), and its sequel Christ and Horrors (2006) relative to Jesus Christ and the defeat of horrors.

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Why is it important?

Adams notes that we human beings are created vulnerable to horrendous evil Bad things can happen to us. At any moment we may be maimed by accident, disfigured by illness, or bombed by terrorists. We are vulnerable creatures in a world of danger and contingency. We all face horrors that threaten the positive meanings of our lives. The badness of horrendous evil goes far beyond moral wrongness. Horrors cannot be made right by judgments of individual moral responsibility, restitution, or punishment. Blame and punishment of perpetrators will not answer horrors. It is Christ who reverses horrors and saves us from horrendous evils. Adams' theology of salvation is deeply incarnational. God identifies with material creation, with us, in the flesh and shares our most vulnerable plight in the world. Adams states that the Divine Word becomes "radically vulnerable to horrors." Christ in-the-flesh identifies with the human situation in our most horrendous vulnerability to evil in the world. Christ, a "horror-participant," shares the victory of life over death with us, and "defeats the power of horrors to destroy the positive meaning of our lives, and so fulfills the positive purpose of his own career." In Christ, identifying with us in the face of evil, horror is defeated. In us, identifying with Christ in sacrifice and self-offering, horror is defeated.