Katherin Rogers

Anselm of Canterbury, as a classical theist, does not hold that there is a moral, or value, order independent of God. What is good, indeed what is necessary and possible, depends on the will of God. But Anselm’s development of this claim does not succumb to the problems entailed by divine-command theory. One such problem addresses the question of whether or not the moral order is available to reason, bracketing Scripture and Church teaching. Anselm holds that to be just is to conform to God’s will. Nevertheless Anselm proposes a eudaimonistic ethical theory that allows reason to assess moral principles. And Anselm holds that the non-believer recognizes justice, even before he can appreciate the more general category of “good.”

William Hasker and I disagree over whether or not appealing to a particular understanding of divine eternity can reconcile divine foreknowledge with libertarian human freedom. Hasker argues that if God had foreknowledge of a particular future choice, that choice cannot be free with libertarian freedom. I hold, to the contrary, that, given a certain theory of time—the view that all times exist equally—it is possible to reconcile divine foreknowledge with libertarian freedom. In a recent article, “Can Eternity be Saved? A Comment on Stump and Rogers”, Hasker makes it clear that one of the fundamental disagreements between us lies in what each of us takes to be required for libertarian free will. In the present paper I outline the version of libertarianism that I find plausible, then explain how a libertarian free choice can be foreknown by God. Then I will explain why Hasker finds this reconciliation unacceptable since it fails to do justice to what he takes to be required for libertarian freedom. Finally, I will argue that Hasker is wrong to insist upon his analysis of free will.

The doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS) is an important aspect of the classical theism of philosophers like Augustine, Anselm, and Thomas Aquinas. Recently the doctrine has been defended in a Thomist mode using the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction. I argue that this approach entails problems which can be avoided by taking Anselm’s more Neoplatonic line. This does involve accepting some controversial claims: for example, that time is isotemporal and that God inevitably does the best. The most difficult problem involves trying to reconcile created libertarian free will with the Anselmian DDS. But for those attracted to DDS the Anselmian approach is worth considering.

Some analytic philosophers of religion argue that theists should embrace the hypothesis of the multiverse to address the problem of evil and make the concept of a “best possible creation” plausible. I discuss what classical theists, such as Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas, might make of the multiverse hypothesis including issues such as: the principle of plenitude, what a classical theist multiverse could look like, and how a classical theist multiverse could deal with the problem of evil and the question of a best possible creation.

In Christ and the Cosmos Keith Ward hopes to “reformulate” the conciliar statements of the Trinity and Incarnation since they cannot serve our post-Enlightenment, scientific age. I dispute Ward’s motivation, noting that the differences in perspective to which he points may not be as radical as he supposes. And his “reformulation” has worrisome consequences. I am especially concerned at his point that Jesus, while very special and perfectly good, is only human. This undermines free will theodicy, and, much more troubling, makes global Christian practice for two millennia idolatry.

Hugh McCann argues that God wills human sin, that humans are nonetheless significantly free, and that his position provides a satisfying theodicy of sin. I defend an Anselmian view: Although God causes the existence of all that exists, He does not produce sin. Human beings are the ultimate sources of their sinning, which sinning should not happen. McCann rejoins that my position is incoherent and that my criticisms are not well taken. I respond, clarifying Anselm’s understanding of human freedom, revisiting and defending my previous criticisms, and arguing that in practice McCann’s position is a poor fit for the Christian life.

Anselm of Canterbury is the first Christian philosopher, perhaps the first philosopher, to offer a systematic analysis of libertarian freedom. His work prefigures that of Robert Kane, and looking at the two philosophers together is helpful in understanding and appreciating the work of each of them. In this paper I show how Anselm adopts a view of choice that foreshadows Kane’s doctrine of ‘plural voluntary control.’ Kane proposes this doctrine as an attempt to answer the ‘luck’ problem. Alfred Mele criticizes this approach, arguing that, unless the agent’s competing desires ultimately originate with the agent himself, he cannotbe considered autonomous. It is true that on both Kane’s and Anselm’s analysis, agents have only a limited area of autonomy. However, an appreciation of theradical implications of this limited autonomy in Anselm’s system shows that plural voluntary control gives the agent significant freedom.

If Christ, a single member of the human race, can pay the debt of sin for all of us, then there must be some principle uniting all humanity. Some scholarssuggest that, in Anselm’s theory of the atonement, the unity in question is similar to that of a corporation or that it derives from our shared participation in humannature. Neither of these proposals can be supported from Anselm’s text. Rather, there is considerable evidence that Anselm held that all the “children of Adam”belong to the same literal, biological family, and it is this which grounds the unity required for the efficacy of Christ’s work. If we understand family to be a naturalhuman institution, the concept of family unity is persuasive.

Katherin A. Rogers presents a new theory of free will, based on the thought of Anselm of Canterbury. We did not originally produce ourselves. Yet, according to Anselm, we can engage in self-creation, freely and responsibly forming our characters by choosing 'from ourselves' between open options. Anselm introduces a new, agent-causal libertarianism which is parsimonious in that, unlike other agent-causal theories, it does not appeal to any unique and mysterious powers to explain how the free agent chooses. After setting out Anselm's original theory, Rogers defends and develops it by addressing a series of standard problems levelled against libertarianism. Finally, as a theory about self-creation, Anselmian Libertarianism must defend the tracing thesis, the claim that an agent can be responsible for character-determined choices, if he, himself, formed his character through earlier a se choices. Throughout, Rogers defends and exemplifies a new methodological suggestion: someone debating free will ought to make his background world view explicit. In the on-going debate over the possibility of human freedom and responsibility, Anselmian Libertarianism constitutes a new and plausible approach.

In 1981 Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann published a landmark article aimed at exploring the classical concept of divine eternity. 1 Taking Boethius as the primary spokesman for the traditional view, they analyse God's eternity as timeless yet as possessing duration. More recently Brian Leftow has seconded Stump and Kretzmann's interpretation of the medieval position and attempted to defend the notion of a durational eternity as a useful way of expressing the sort of life God leads. 2 However, there are good reasons to reject the idea that divine timelessness should be thought of as having duration. The medievals probably did not accept it, as it contradicts a principle of classical metaphysics even more fundamental than the atemporality of the divine. In any case, it is not possible to express the notion of durational eternity in even a minimally coherent way, and the attempt to salvage the concept by appealing to the Thomistic doctrine of analogy is unsuccessful. The best analogy for God's eternity is still the one proposed by Augustine at the end of the fourth century. God lives in a timeless ‘present’, unextended like our temporal present, but immutable and encompassing all time

This work argues that Anselm was a Christian neoplatonist of the Augustinian variety, and that thus he was the inheritor of a powerful and systematic metaphysics and epistemology. The view that the world is an image of the divine mind and its ideas, a fragmented and temporal copy of of the perfect, eternal unity which is God, led Anselm to a strong exemplarism on the doctrine of the universals, and ultimately to a theistic idealism. This discussion concludes with a neoplatonic interpretation and defence of his work, the Proslogion, proof for the existence of God.

That being than which a greater cannot be conceived.' This was the way in which the living God of biblical tradition was described by the great Medieval philosophers such as Augustine, Anselm and Aquinas.Contemporary philosophers find much to question, criticise and reject in the traditional analysis of that description. Some hold that the attributes traditionally ascribed to God - simplicity, necessity, immutability, eternity, omniscience, omnipotence, creativity and goodness - are inherently incoherent individually, or mutually inconsistent. Others argue that the divinity described by philosophers cannot be the same as the providential God of revelation.In Perfect Being Theology Katherin A. Rogers defends the traditional approach, considering contemporary criticisms but concluding that the most adequate account of the nature of God should build upon the foundation laid by the Medieval philosophers.Written in a lively and accessible style and offering an important historical perspective, this book covers key areas of contention and many of the major ideas and thinkers from all sides of the debate are included.

The Council of Chalcedon insisted that God Incarnate is one person with two natures, one divine and one human. Recently critics have rightly argued that God Incarnate cannot be a composite person. In the present paper I defend a new composite theory using the analogy of a boy playing a video game. The analogy suggests that the Incarnation is God doing something. The Incarnation is what I label an “action composite” and is a state of affairs, constituted by one divine person assuming human nature. This solves a number of puzzles, conforms to Chalcedon, and is logically and metaphysically consistent

If Christ, a single member of the human race, can pay the debt of sin for all of us, then there must be some principle uniting all humanity. Some scholarssuggest that, in Anselm’s theory of the atonement, the unity in question is similar to that of a corporation or that it derives from our shared participation in humannature. Neither of these proposals can be supported from Anselm’s text. Rather, there is considerable evidence that Anselm held that all the “children of Adam”belong to the same literal, biological family, and it is this which grounds the unity required for the efficacy of Christ’s work. If we understand family to be a naturalhuman institution, the concept of family unity is persuasive.

Incompatibilists hold that, in order for you to be responsible, your choices must come from yourself; thus, determinism is incompatible with responsibility. One way of defending this claim is the Controller Argument: You are not responsible if your choices are caused by a controller, and natural determinism is relevantly similar to such control, therefore... Q.E.D. Compatibilists dispute both of these premises, insisting upon a relevant dissimilarity, or allowing, in a tollens move, that since we can be determined and responsible, we can be controlled and responsible. Positing a divine controller strengthens the argument against these two responses.

If God is the cause of everything that has any sort of existence at all, where is there room in the universe for rational creatures to have freedom of will? Isn’t a choice made by a created agent a sort of thing, and hence made by God? But if God causes our choices, how are we responsible such that we can be appropriately praised and blamed? Call this the dilemma of created freedom and divine omnipotence. Anselm solves the dilemma by proposing a description of free choice in which what is contributed by the created agent is not any new thing at all. In addition to the historical case, I argue that this move is a philosophically viable solution to the puzzle. I end by noting that this move has important implications for current philosophical work on the question of freedom of the will.