[R]edeeming grace is necessary prior to any act of human will precisely because there is no free will in the absence of such grace. Thus, our salvation is ultimately the result of prevenient grace--the grace that precedes every act of human will. This point is made clearly in 2 Nephi 10:23-24:
Therefore, cheer up your hearts, and remember that ye are free to act for yourselves--to choose the way of everlasting death or the way of eternal life.
Wherefore . . . reconcile yourselves to the will of God, and not the will of the devil and the flesh; and remember, after ye are reconciled unto God, that it is only in and through the grace of Christ that ye are saved.
Thus there is no thought that salvation is earned by free will, for it is a strange notion of "earning" that suggests that willingly accepting a gift from another is an act of labor that earns the gift and thereby transforms the gift into a wage payment. Rather, the concept is that we are agents only because of the Atonement that frees us to choose at all. One of the most misinterpreted scriptures in the LDS canon expresses the same view: "For we labor diligently . . . to be reconciled to God; for we know that is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do" (2 Ne. 25:23). This scripture is frequently interpreted in LDS discourses to mean that we can be saved only after we have done everything in our power that we can do on our own. Thus, after I have done all that I can and only then, God will do the rest. However, such an interpretation is precisely the opposite of its meaning. Such a view in fact enshrines human effort as the condition of earning grace--a contradiction in terms--and makes salvation impossible for the simple but decisive reason that no merit mortal has ever done all that he or she can do. If we have to do all that we can do before we receive saving grace, then we will never receive such grace. As Emmanuel Levinas so ably argues, there is always more than we can do in serving and responding to the call of the other. However, this scripture does not teach that we earn grace by first doing everything that we can do on our own. Rather, we are saved by grace after all we can do because our very ability to choose to accept the grace offered to us in a free gift. Thus, our salvation is ultimately dependent upon grace. The relationship offered to us is also a free gift, and we did nothing to earn or merit either of them.
The Book of Mormon asserts that all person are free to choose among alternatives of life and death and are therefore free to accept or reject God's grace, but the choice is ultimately made possible only by God's grace. Thus, one enters the way leading to eternal life "by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly on the merits of him who is mighty to save" (2 Ne. 31:19). Nevertheless, once on the path, the burden is on human agency to persist in faith by God's grace. "Wherefore ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ . . . and a love of God and of all men" (2 Ne. 31:20). In other words, there is no preventing or preserving grace because we must endure to the end (2 Ne. 31:15-16) (Blake T. Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought, vol. 2: The Problems of Theism and the Love of God [Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Book, 2006], 221-22)
