Many communities are mourning the passing of Marilyn McCord Adams: philosophers, theologians and Christians from all over the world benefited from her influence during her lifetime.1 We can only hope that the reach of her prolific work and profound insights continues to grow in the future. In honor of Professor McCord Adams, I would like to note some of the distinctive and inspiring aspects of her life and work. I first encountered the work of

If “God so loved the world” (John 3:16) and “desires that all be saved” (2 Tim 2:4), how are Christians to make sense of hell? Is hell undoubtedly eternal (as passages like Matt 25:41 suggest), or is it possible that God’s Love will eventually conquer even the staunchest of resisting wills? What is the role of doctrine about hell in living the Christian life, in training new Christians, or in proclaiming the Gospel?  Today our

For my monthly contribution, I want to engage in an interesting thought experiment. Let me start off with the caveat that I am not, at this moment, a Universalist. In the upcoming November Round Table on Hell and universalism, I will described myself as a “Hopefulist” in the sense that I desperately want it to be true that God eventually saves everyone in the end, but I cannot definitively prove that this is the case.

The human person—with his openness to truth and beauty, his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and the voice of his conscience, his longings for the infinite and for happiness—questions himself about God’s existence. In all this he discerns signs of his spiritual soul. The soul, the “seed of eternity we bear in ourselves, irreducible to the merely material,” can have its origin only in God (CCC 33). Such says the Catechism of the Catholic

1 Timothy 2:1–4:  “I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings should be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” 2 Peter 3:8–9: “But do not ignore