Anselm on Freedom

by Katherin Rogers

Overview

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 grace cannot 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 beings must 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199231676
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	08/15/2008
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

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

Table of Contents

Introduction1. Anselm's Classical Theism2. The Augustinian Legacy3. The Purpose, Definition, and Structure of Free Choice4. Alternative Possibilities and Primary Agency5. The Causes of Sin and the Intelligibility Problem6. Creaturely Freedom and God as iCreator Omnium/i7. Grace and Free Will8. Foreknowledge, Freedom and Eternity: Part I The Problem and Historical Background9. Foreknowledge, Freedom and Eternity: Part II Anselm's Solution10. The Freedom of GodBibliography

Editorial Reviews

"Katherin Rogers's fine analysis is very much in the spirit of Anselm's own work. Her Anselm on Freedom is an invaluable resource for both undergraduate and graduate students on the multivalent topic of human freedom." —American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly

"Rogers offers a careful and systematic study of Anselm's treatment of human freedom in the context of theistic theology. Philosophers of religion will find her discussion of free will with respect to the theological problems of creation, grace, divine foreknowledge and eternity useful and provocative." —Philosophy in Review

From the Publisher