Written on the Heart, Erased from the Mind

Abstract

Can there be moral agency without autonomy? Absent the freedom to deliberate, make a choice, and enact a decision, does the covenantal relationship described in Jeremiah 31 understand fidelity to God to be anything more than involuntary obedience? Put differently, if both the covenantal requirements and the decision to obey them are externally inscribed on the human heart, if like computer software they are “programmed” into the operating system, do humans automatically surrender their freedom for thinking about moral decisions? This chapter examines the language of moral selfhood (both divine and human) in Jeremiah, with special attention to trauma theory as a hermeneutical lens for thinking about the “wounding of the mind” wrought by the experience of exile.