Claim. The freedom of love is a gift to be received, but it is also a self-disciplinary responsibility — true freedom in love is impossible without believers-responsibility for it.
Elaboration. SMM rejects the libertarian framing: “True freedom is premised on taking responsibility. If everyone insisted only on the freedom of love for each individual and put this into practice, without taking responsibility for it, how great would be the confusion and catastrophe resulting from it!” (3.2. The absolute value of sexual love, 277-200, 1996.4.16). The self-discipline is not externally enforced but internally constituted: “Humankind must be grateful to God for giving them the freedom of love. But at the same time, they should take responsibility, by becoming the subject of that freedom through self-discipline and self-control. When a person takes responsibility for love, he does not do so because of laws or what other people think, but because of self-dominion and self-determination in the vertical relationship of life with God” (ibid). The blunt corollary: “If you use your sexual organs recklessly, like a blind person who is wandering here and there because he has lost his way, you are bound for hell” (ibid, 279-256, 1996.9.15).
See also. believers-responsibility, love