In many of his later works, Anselm deals with issues related to will, choice, and freedom. The discussions are intricate and aim at solving philosophical problems related to the Christian doctrine. In De libertate arbitrii, Anselm seeks to establish that human beings always have a freedom, namely, ‘‘freedom of choice,’’ which makes them accountable for their good and evil deeds, even though it is the case that a sinner cannot turn away from sin without the help of the divine grace. The main task in De casu diaboli is to explain the fall of the angel that was the first creature to sin, and to explain it in such a way that God will not in the least be responsible for his fall. An analysis of the functioning of the will is a central ingredient in the explanation. In De concordia, Anselm works to show that free choice is compatible with divine foreknowledge, predestination, and grace.
Freedom of choice is a freedom that belongs to all beings that have will and reason: to human beings, to angels, and to God. Anselm defines freedom of choice as ‘‘the ability to keep the uprightness of will for the sake of uprightness itself.’’ The ground for this definition has been laid in De veritate, where justice (or righteousness) is defined as ‘‘uprightness of will kept for its own sake.’’ A will is just (or righteous) if it always wills what it ought to will and it wills it for the very reason that it ought to will it. Freedom of choice is, hence, the ability of rational creatures to keep justice, that is, to continue willing what they ought to will for the reason that it is what they ought to will. Anselm, thus, did not conceive freedom in terms of choosing between different alternatives. He explicitly rejects the suggestion that freedom of choice could be defined as ‘‘the ability to sin and not to sin,’’ and he claims that a being who is not able to sin is freer than A being who is able to sin.
Both human beings and angels always have freedom of choice. They always have the ability to keep the uprightness of will because nothing in the world, not even God, can prevent the will from willing what it ought to will; the will wills only what it wills to will. However, it is not always the case that rational creatures can use their freedom of choice. A will can keep uprightness only if it has uprightness, and this is not always factual. Nothing can take uprightness from a will, but the will itself can desert it by willing what it ought not, and any slightest breach will have this consequence. Once the uprightness is lost, the will needs the assistance of the divine grace to recover it (and the grace also constantly assists the will when it has uprightness).
Regarding divine foreknowledge, Anselm argues, following Augustine, that it actually guarantees human freedom: it is part of God’s foreknowledge that some of the things that he foreknows to occur will occur for the reason that human beings will freely choose them. Further, Anselm appeals to the nontemporal character of divine existence and claims, as Boethius had done in Philosophiae consolatio, that God’s knowledge is not really /oreknowl-edge but knowledge of what is present.
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