Anselm rejects the notion that one must be able to act in ways other than they do in order to be free. If freedom had to be defined in these terms, then God, the good angels, the blessed in heaven, the bad angels, and the damned in hell could not be free since they lack this ability to do otherwise. God, the good angels, and the blessed cannot bring about evil while the bad angels and the damned cannot bring about the good. [Sect. 2.b.]This seems wrong. The fact that God, the good angels, and the blessed in heaven cannot do evil does not entail that they cannot act in ways other than they do. God cannot do evil - I'm certainly not disputing that. But the tradition affirms that he could choose to create or choose not to create. And it seems likely that when God was deciding to create, he could have created a world with unicorns, or a world with no rational animals. And in this way God can act in a way other than He in fact did. Similarly with the blessed in heaven. That a saint can no longer choose evil does not entail that he no longer can choose to act otherwise than he in fact does. It's perfectly plausible that St. Peter can choose to worship God by praising his goodness or by praising his majesty. St. John may no longer be able to choose to by envious of his brother (for example), but it seems that he can choose to spend some time with St. Paul or St. James.
The problem is that in this passage the ability to do otherwise is equated with the ability to choose good or evil. But while this may be a plausible way to understand moral freedom, but freedom is broader than that.
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