Remove grace, and you have nothing whereby to be saved. Remove free will and you have nothing that could be saved.
Interpretation
Grace and free will are essential for salvation; without them, there is nothing to save or be saved by.
This quote by Anselm of Canterbury emphasizes the fundamental role of grace and free will in the process of salvation. It suggests that grace is a divine gift necessary for salvation, while free will is the human capacity to choose faith and repentance. Without grace, there are no grounds for salvation, and without free will, there is no opportunity for personal choice in accepting that salvation.
In practice
During a discussion on the importance of personal choice in faith, you can use this quote to illustrate the concept of salvation.
A Prayer of Anselm My God, I pray that I may so know you and love you that I may rejoice in you. And if I may not do so fully in this life let me go steadily on to the day when I come to that fullness . . . Let me receive That which you promised through your truth, that my joy may be full.
For I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand. For I believe this: unless I believe, I will not understand.
Spare me through your mercy, do not punish me through your justice.
I believe in order that I may understand.
A single Mass offered for oneself during life may be worth more than a thousand celebrated for the same intention after death.
I have written the little work that follows . . . in the role of one who strives to raise his mind to the contemplation of God and one who seeks to understand what he believes.
Droll thing life is -- that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself -- that comes too late -- a crop of inextinguishable regrets.
But you who walk facing the sun, what images drawn on the earth can hold you?
Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all.
He is, as you say, a remarkable horse, a prodigious horse, although as you very justly observe, a suspicious and untractable character.
Evil, in this system of ethics, is that which tears apart, shuts out the other person, raises barriers, sets people against each other.
A man is never the same for long. He is continually changing. He seldom remains the same even for half an hour.
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