{"id":110,"date":"2008-12-30T23:53:06","date_gmt":"2008-12-30T23:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/tonyjones\/2008\/12\/marilyn-adams-on-the-pragmatic.html"},"modified":"2008-12-30T23:53:06","modified_gmt":"2008-12-30T23:53:06","slug":"marilyn-adams-on-the-pragmatic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2008\/12\/marilyn-adams-on-the-pragmatic.html","title":{"rendered":"Marilyn McCord Adams on the Pragmatics of Hell (Keith)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m hoping to get more substantial posts on the pragmatics of hell up soon, but for now, a–somewhat dated, and quite brief–report, based on her pastoral experience, from Marilyn McCord Adams<\/a> (author of Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God<\/a><\/i> and of Christ and Horrors<\/a><\/i>, both of which should be of great interest to many readers of this blog).  This is from a section of Marilyn’s essay, “The Problem of Hell” entitled “The Pragmatics of Universalism,” but what she’s really up to is comparing the pragmatics of universalism with my current topic, the pragmatics of fairly nasty doctrines of hell:<\/p>\n

Surprisingly many religiously serious people reject the
\ndoctrine of universal salvation on the pragmatic ground that it leads to moral
\nand religious laxity. Withdraw the
\nthreat, and they doubt whether others–perhaps even themselves–would sustain the
\nmotivation for moral diligence and religious observance. My pastoral experience suggests, on the
\ncontrary, that the disproportionate threat of hell (see sections 2.2 and 2.3)
\nproduces despair that masquerades as skepticism, rebellion, and unbelief. If your father threatens to kill you if you
\ndisobey him, you may cower in terrorized submission, but may also (reasonably)
\nrun away from home. -Marilyn Adams, “The
\nProblem of Hell: A Problem of Evil for Christians,” in E. Stump, ed., Reasoned
\nFaith: Essays in Philosophical Theology<\/i> (Cornell
\nUniversity Press, 1993), p. 325\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m hoping to get more substantial posts on the pragmatics of hell up soon, but for now, a–somewhat dated, and quite brief–report, based on her pastoral experience, from Marilyn McCord Adams (author of Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God and of Christ and Horrors, both of which should be of great interest to many…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":348,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theology"],"yoast_head":"\nMarilyn McCord Adams on the Pragmatics of Hell (Keith) - The New Christians<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2008\/12\/marilyn-adams-on-the-pragmatic.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Marilyn McCord Adams on the Pragmatics of Hell (Keith) - The New Christians\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I’m hoping to get more substantial posts on the pragmatics of hell up soon, but for now, a–somewhat dated, and quite brief–report, based on her pastoral experience, from Marilyn McCord Adams (author of Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God and of Christ and Horrors, both of which should be of great interest to many…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2008\/12\/marilyn-adams-on-the-pragmatic.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The New Christians\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-12-30T23:53:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"kderose\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Marilyn McCord Adams on the Pragmatics of Hell (Keith) - The New Christians","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2008\/12\/marilyn-adams-on-the-pragmatic.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Marilyn McCord Adams on the Pragmatics of Hell (Keith) - 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