A Quote: St. Augustine on the Mystery of Salvation

“Without God, man cannot. Without man, God will not.”
-St. Augustine

Augustine here affirms that the salvation process is a mystery unbeknownst to man. Augustine says that man can in no way choose God without God first initiating that choice. Yet he states that without man willingly choosing God, God by no means will initiate the salvation process. This seeming contradiction only supports the idea that the salvation process is an unfathomable meshing of human Free Will and divine Sovereign Choice.

A Quote on the Divine Plan of Salvation: St. Anselm

“For it was appropriate that, just as death entered the human race through a man’s disobedience, so life should be restored through a man’s obedience; and that, just as the sin which was the cause of our damnation originated from a woman, similarly the originator of our justification and salvation should be born of a woman. Also that the devil, who defeated the man whom he beguiled through the taste of a tree, should himself similarly be defeated by a man through tree-induced suffering which he, the devil, inflicted. There are many other things, too, which, if carefully considered, display the indescribable beauty of the fact that our redemption was procured in this way.”
-St. Anselm of Cantebury