What is freedom? Are we meant to be free? Is it our nature (#1730)? Is it our nature to use freedom well (#1732-1739)?

Genuine freedom is power, "the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility"(#1731).

Morality is too often construed as just the avoidance of breaking rules. Of course, breaking rules is not good. Rules are guides (see Rom 3:21-31). We reject them at our peril (#1755-1756). If our goal is God, the rules will not be arbitrary, but will make sense and we will not feel hampered by them. The freedom of moral action comes in living positively for Christ (#1742). Are we weighed down? Can we act freely? What do we have to lose?

Freedom is one of the greatest gifts of love that our Creator has given us. God is love. Humanity failed, but God sent Jesus to set us free once again. Christians are called to be free. Internal freedom is the freedom to be all we can possibly be; external freedom is the freedom to do all we can possibly do. It is our freely made choice not to be true to our love relationships that limits internal freedom; we are not being what we were meant to be. When we choose self over others, we truly become prisoners locked in our own selfishness and are, hence, less free.