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capable of abstract thought and love and having the power of free choice
between contemplated alternative courses of action. This last feature of
rational beings, free choice or free will, is a good. But even an omnipotent
being is unable to control the exercise of the power of free choice, for a choice
that was controlled would ipso facto not be free. In other words, if I have a
free choice between x and y , even God cannot ensure that I choose x . To ask
God to give me a free choice between x and y and to see to it that I choose
x instead of y is to ask God to bring about the intrinsically impossible; it is
like asking him to create a round square, a material body that has no shape,
or an invisible object that casts a shadow. Having this power of free choice,
some or all human beings misused it and produced a certain amount of evil.
But free will is a suffi ciently great good that its existence outweighs the evils
that have resulted and will result from its abuse; and God foresaw this. (van
Inwagen, 71 – 2)
Problem of Evil, Conclusion 3: * C3 * . God has the desire to eliminate
all evil.
P1. God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect.
P2. If God is morally perfect, then if it is impossible to secure a great good
without permitting an evil, God will not desire to eliminate that evil.
The Free Will Defense to the Problem of Evil 39
P3. Free will in created beings is a great good (or is a necessary precondition
for great goods).
P4. It is impossible to secure the existence of free will in created beings
without permitting evil to exist.
C1. If it is impossible to secure a great good without permitting an evil,
God will not desire to eliminate that evil ( modus ponens, P1, P2).
C2. It is impossible to secure a great good (free will) without permitting
an evil (semantic substitution, P3, P4).
C3. God will not desire to eliminate all evil ( modus ponens , C1, C2,
with slight semantic variation).
C4. * C3 * (Conclusion 3 of the Problem of Evil) is false (double negation,
C3).
C5. The Problem of Evil is unsound. (All arguments with a false premise
are unsound by defi nition.)
9
St. Anselm on Free Choice and
the Power to Sin
Julia Hermann
Anselm ’ s argument for the claim that freedom of choice does not entail the
power to sin is still of great philosophical interest regarding the problem of
free will. Interested in how free will bears on the human responsibility for
sin and the need for grace, Anselm ’ s reasons for dealing with the issue differ
from those of contemporary philosophers. Yet, we do not have to share his
interests in order to see the force of his arguments.
The argument presented here can be found at the beginning of Anselm ’ s
dialogue “ On Freedom of Choice, ” which is the second of three “ treatises
pertaining to the study of Holy Scripture ” (S I: 173; Dialogues , 1), all of
which deal with closely related subject matters: truth and justice ( De
Veritate ), freedom of choice ( De Libertate Arbitrii ), and the fall of the devil
( De Casu Diaboli ). The speakers are the same in all three dialogues: a
teacher asking questions and a student responding to them.
At the beginning of the second dialogue, the teacher rejects the view put
forward by the student that “ freedom of choice is ‘ the ability to sin and
not to sin ’ ” (S 208; Dialogues , 32). He starts with a reductio ad absurdum :
S. Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi Opera Omnia . Edited by Franciscus
Salesius Schmitt , 3 vols. Stuttgart – Bad Cannstatt : Friedrich Fromann
Verlag , 1968 . (S)
Anselm . Three Philosophical Dialogues , translated by Thomas Williams.
Indianapolis : Hackett , 2002 . ( Dialogues )
Just the Arguments: 100 of the Most Important Arguments in Western Philosophy,
First Edition. Edited by Michael Bruce and Steven Barbone.
© 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
St. Anselm on Free Choice and the Power to Sin 41
If freedom of choice was that ability, “ neither God nor the angels, who
cannot sin, would have free choice – which it is impious to say ” (ibid.). He
then provides a further argument for the claim that “ the power to sin is
neither freedom nor a part of freedom, ” which will be reconstructed below
(ibid.).
Initially, the student believes that a will capable of both sinning and not
sinning is freer than a will which lacks the former capacity. This reveals the
assumption, prominent in recent debates about the compatibility of free
will and determinism, that the capacity to do otherwise is a necessary condition
for freedom of will ( “ Principle of Alternative Possibilities, ” #31).
Anselm rejects this assumption, holding that freedom does not depend on
the possibility to will both what is just and what is unjust but on the ability
to initiate one ’ s own actions. It is a necessary condition for a person ’ s
will to be free that his actions have their origin in him and not in any
external power (S I: 209f; Dialogues , 33f.). Freedom of will (or choice) is
only impeded by external compulsion, not by the lack of alternative possibilities.
Today, we fi nd elaborated versions of this idea in accounts of
“ agent - causality. ”
Starting from the premise that “ if someone has what is fi tting and expedient
in such a way that he cannot lose it, he is freer than someone who
has it in such a way that he can lose it and be seduced into what is unfi tting
and harmful, ” Anselm argues that a will that lacks the ability to sin is freer
than a will that has it. He then continues arguing that since something that
diminishes the will ’ s freedom when added to the will cannot be freedom or
a part of it, and since the power to sin diminishes freedom when added to
the will, that power is neither freedom nor a part of freedom.
Initially, the fi rst premise of the argument seems controversial. It must
be seen in the light of Anselm ’ s teleological conception of freedom. Later
in the dialogue, freedom of choice is defi ned as “ the power to preserve
rectitude of will for the sake of rectitude itself ” (S I: 212; Dialogues , 36).
This defi nition, in turn, cannot be understood independently of Anselm ’ s
discussion of truth in the fi rst dialogue. There he argues that truth consists
in rectitude, or correctness ( rectitudo , S I: 177; Dialogues , 5). He speaks of
truth not only in statements and opinions but also in actions, the will, the
senses, and the essences of things. According to his teleological understanding
of rectitude, a will has rectitude if it wills what it ought to will, that is,
what God wants it to will (S I: 181f; Dialogues , 8f).