In this article we respond to arguments from William Hasker and David Kyle Johnson that free will is incompatible with both divine foreknowledge and eternalism (what we refer to as isotemporalism). In particular, we sketch an Anselmian account of time and freedom, briefly defend the view against Hasker's critique, and then respond in more depth to Johnson's claim that Anselmian freedom is incompatible with free will because it entails that our actions are 'ontologically necessary'. In defending Anselmian freedom we argue (...) that our ordinary intuitions do not support Johnson's case and that Anselmian freedom is compatible with deliberation. (shrink)

In this article I examine the modal theism of St. Anselm of Canterbury, arguing that the person of the divine Son plays an important role in how Anselm thinks about God’s power and possibilities. Beginning with his first major theological work, the Monologion, I show how Anselm’s characterizes God’s knowledge of creation, not in the traditional, Augustinian terms of an intellectual divine “idea,” but in the comparatively more linguistic terms of a divine “locutio” or “utterance.” I go on to argue (...) that this sets Anselm up for a somewhat unique modal theology, one in which God is best understood as acting and creating, not against the backdrop of an already defined and existing domain of possibilities, but in a way that makes him the inventor and creator of his own possibilities. In the second part of the article, I turn to Anselm’s influential work of Christology, Cur Deus Homo, to examine how his “theistic actualism” is paralleled in select aspects of his account of the divine Son’s Incarnation in the person and work of Jesus Christ. (shrink)