Anselm on Freedom

Can human beings be free and responsible if there is a God? Anselm of Canterbury, the first Christian philosopher to propose that human beings have a really robust free will, offers viable answers to questions which have plagued religious people for at least two thousand years: If divine gracecannot be merited and is necessary to save fallen humanity, how can there be any decisive role for individual free choice to play? If God knows today what you are going to choose tomorrow, then when tomorrow comes you have to choose what God foreknew, so how can your choice be free? If human beingsmust have the option to choose between good and evil in order to be morally responsible, must God be able to choose evil? Anselm answers these questions with a sophisticated theory of free will which defends both human freedom and the sovereignty and goodness of God.

Katherin Rogers is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Delaware, specializing in Medieval Philosophy and Philosophy of Religion.