Commenting on the Latter-day Saint view of "grace," Lowell L. Bennion (1908-1996) wrote:
In the Mormon view of eternal life, grace precedes, accompanies, and completes individual effort and merit. And by grace we mean the unmerited gifts of Deity to man given freely out of Divine love . . .
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Grace
A Christian acknowledges and is profoundly grateful for the grace of Deity. By grace, I mean unmerited gifts freely given to mankind. Not enough is said in our church about grace. We do not earn all our blessings by faith and works. Not all of our blessings come by obedience to law, I believe.
Three great acts of creation are wrought by Deity and on our behalf—the spiritual creation in the pre-earth life, the mortal creation, and the resurrection. Christ is playing a leading role in the latter two. Life is all three of its stages is a gift. I hope you believe that—that life is a gift. You and I were incapable of creating for ourselves either on earth or in the resurrection.
The gift of the Holy Ghost, in light of Christ, and the spirit of God come to us freely. We have to open our minds and hearts to receive them, but they are gifts of love nonetheless. The priesthood, the very power of God, is also a precious gift. It is Deity’s to give.
One of the greatest gifts of grace is forgiveness of sins. True, we must repent to be in a frame of mind to receive and to be healed by forgiveness. But as the word itself illustrates, giving is always involved in forgiveness, whether between persons or between Deity and human beings.
The whole gospel teaching has come to us as a gift of Deity through Jesus and the prophets. I didn’t create or originate faith, repentance, meekness, humility, integrity, or love, and neither did you.
Grace plays a large role in both Catholic and Protestant faiths. In Catholicism, it comes to the Christian through the sacraments of the Church, which have been called vehicles of divine grace. In some Protestant faiths, salvation is entirely a matter of grace. When salvation is conceived in terms of redemption from death and sin, it is natural and quite logical to give Christ full credit for it, following the lead of the Apostle Paul: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Salvation for Latter-day Saints includes redemption from sin and death, but it also has a very positive meaning: It is a process of self realization of one’s full potential as a human being and a child of God. It is to increase in knowledge and wisdom, in integrity and love, in the divine attributes of Deity. Life is a gift of grace, but what we do with that gift is our responsibility and opportunity. Grace precedes, accompanies and follows the faith and works of the individual, but human growth is unthinkable without human effort, I believe. (The Best of Lowell L. Bennion: Selected Writings 1928-1998, ed. Eugene England [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1988], 115, 269-70)
