Franciscan Studies

FREEDOM AND NECESSITY IN ST. ANSELM'S "CUR DEUS HOMO' Ideo enim necessitate fuerant quia futura erant; et futura erant, quia fuerunt; et fuerunt, quia fuerunt... Scito omnia ex necessitate fuisse, quia ipse voluit. Voluntatem vero eius nulla praecessit nécessitas. * For therefore were [all the things undertaken by Christ] necessary , because they were to be, and they were to be because they were, and they were because they were... Know that they were of necessity because he wished them to be. But no necessity preceded his will.2 I. SYNTACTICS Syntax renders intelligible the first part of this citation. The events in question possess the modality of impossibility for nonoccurrence . From the speaker's viewpoint (time x), they possess this modality at some prior temporal location (time2). Time2 is also prior to some other assumed point (time3) prior to time!. The non-modal presence or affirmability of the events at time3 is taken to be the necessity for their modal presence at time2, i.e., if the first is not present then neither will be the second. Secondly, the presence at time3 has its necessity in the presence of the events at a time4 still prior to time!. This time4 seems to coincide in the argument with time3, time3 being that point with respect to time2, and time4 being that same point with respect to XJnIe1. Finally, the presence at time4 is said to have no further necessity among events of the same kind, i.e., those which could be replacements for the events in question. Instead, the second part of our 1 S. Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi Omnia Opera, 6 vols., ed. Franciscus Salesius Schmitt (Edinburg: Thomas Nelson, 1946), vol. 2, p. 125; II, 18a, ad finem. 8 St. Anselm, Basic Writings, trans. S. N. Deane, 2nd ed. (La Salle, 111.: Open Court, 1964), p. 277. All later references are to this translation. 178CHRISTOPHER B. GRAY original statement shows that will is the only necessity for the events. The necessity residing in the events is will, but there is no event in time such that this will is necessary. Thus the passage states that the order of dependence runs as follows from the unnecessary to the necessary : (o->·) will -> nonmodal presence at time3.4 -»- necessity at time2 -> necessity at time^ II. INTERPRETATION Grammar Chapter 18a The immediate surroundings of the text in chapter eighteen are the discussions of events of Christ's life and the will of Christ as making necessary those events. Once this solution has been stated, the conclusion follows that Christ met death without being necessitated to do so. This appears as an intermediate conclusion to the intention of the whole work. It is not the only possible way in which the events could have been related; but it is a sufficient explanation and satisfactory. This is a reasonable explanation for Anselm, but this does not suffice to make it absolutely certain in his eyes, for God may do things impenetrable to reason. This will render reason as not the ultimate criterion for what is the state of affairs and what is not. This solution is a choice among many possibilities, not all of which may be available to human knowing. The text is preceded in this chapter by the reference to Aristotle 's doctrine of subsequent necessity, which apparently destroys choice together with choosable alternatives. Subsequent necessity, however, is inoperative and simply a restatement of the fact itself, that a fact is a fact. It does not equal or demand a causal necessity, called antecedent necessity. Anselm exemplifies such antecedent causal necessity by the movement of the heavens; they revolve because they must revolve. This is more than saying they must revolve because they are revolving . In the context of speaking of Aristotle's doctrine of necessity , then, Anselm introduces the Aristotelian example of necessary movement but now calls it antecedent necessity. It is sure that Aristotle , while distinguishing between events which did and those which did not have a particular kind of necessity, would never have said that behind the movement of the heavens was unconditioned Freedom and Necessity in St. Anselm179 choice. Anselm surely is unjust to Aristotelian doctrine in claiming that he...