Marilyn McCord Adams on Theological Balancing Acts

In class we have been considering universalism. Shortly, we will be considering Marilyn McCord Adams' essay "The Problem of Hell: A Problem of Evil for Christians". (We have already touched upon some themes found in her essay.)

Here is one passage from that essay that I'd like you to think carefully about together. In this passage, she notes that all parties to the conversation are "confronted with a theological balancing act". She contrasts her theological balancing act with that of William Lane Craig (along with many other defenders of hell).

Note that in the passage below, '(III)' refers to the proposition that some created persons will be consigned to hell forever while '(I)' refers to the proposition that God exists, and is essentially omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good. 

Further note that Adams refers to the following notion of God's goodness to a person:

'God is good to a created person p' if and only if God guarantees to p a life that is a great good to p on the whole, and one in which p's participation in deep and horrendous evils (if any) is defeated within the context of p's life.

She writes:

Like Craig, I take the Bible seriously; indeed, as an Episcopal priest, I am sworn to the claim that "the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments" are "the Word of God" and "contain all things necessary to salvation". Like Swinburne, Stump, and Lewis, I feel bound to weigh the tradition behind (III).... As I see it, both the defenders of hell and I are confronted with a theological balancing act. The prima facie incompossibility of (I) and (III) and the accompanying pragmatic difficulties force us into a position of weighing some items of tradition more than others. Like many Christians, Craig begins with a high doctrine of the authority of Scripture, which combines with a certain hermeneutic, to make (III) obligatory. He then appeals to an equally high doctrine of human freedom to try to reconcile (I) with (III). For this, he pays the price of denying that God will be good to every person he creates...and further of understanding divine goodness to be compatible with the damnation of the vast majority of actual created persons. Likewise, Craig's God shares the limitations of human social planners: (i) He cannot achieve the optimal overall good without sacrificing the welfare of some individual persons; (ii) nor can He redeem all personal evil: some of the wicked He can only quarantine or destroy. 

She continues:

By contrast, I emphasize a high doctrine of divine resourcefulness (assigning God the power to let creatures to "do their damnedest" and still win them all over to heavenly bliss) and a low doctrine of human agency (both ontologically, in terms of the gap between God and creatures, and psychologically, in terms of developmental limitations and impairments). Because I do not regard Scripture as infallible on any interpretation, I do not feel bound to translate into theological assertion some of the apocalyptic imagery and plot lines of the New Testament. Nevertheless, I do not regard my universalist theology as un-Scriptural, because I believe the theme of definitive divine triumph is central to the Bible, is exemplified in Christ Jesus, and is the very basis of our Christian hope.

What do you make of her descriptions of the theological balancing acts that she and Craig (and other defenders of hell) must maintain? Are her descriptions accurate? In this passage, at least, she doesn't seem to identify a "price" that she has to "pay" for her theology. Is that because there is no "price" that she must "pay"? If so, why should we think that her theology comes "for free"? But if there is a "price", what is it exactly?

And all this talk about everybody having to confront a theological balancing act might prompt some to suppose that since we all have to do some balancing, we all just get to pick what it is we wish to balance, and there's no genuine rational basis for preferring one balancing act over another. Does that seem right? Why or why not?