This understanding of freedom, however, requires not only a belief that we possess an actual nature, which must flourish to be free, but a belief in the transcendent Good towards which that nature is oriented. This Christians, Jews, and virtuous pagans have always understood: that which can endure in us is sustained by that which lies beyond us, in the eternity of its own plenitude. To be fully free is to be joined to that end for which our natures were originally framed, and for which - in the deepest reaches of our souls - we ceaselessly yearn. And whatever separates us from that end - even
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