ABSTRACT
This chapter explains about Debt and Sin. In many Indo-European languages the terms used for debt are often the same as those used for sin and guilt. 'Schuld' in German is a commonly cited example. Since that word means both 'debt' and 'sin', settling a debt comes to sound like an act of atonement. But what keeps most of us from achieving this state of true virtue is precisely the kind of case that Socrates is always raising. This theology of power worship could be enough to justify the identification of debt with duty, if duty is taken to refer not to moral duty but rather to the duty to obey the divine power. If that power legislates that all debts must be repaid, then there is no difference between it being the case that one has a debt and it being the case that one ought to pay it, as a matter of worshipful obedience to the divine will.
