Morality and debt

In Sanskrit, Hebrew, and Aramaic, ‘debt,’ ‘guilt,’ and ‘sin’ are actually all the same word. There is this concept of a cosmic debt that must be paid to the gods. You are born, you now owe your life to the gods, and so you pay this debt back through worship and obedience. We can see this in the Bible with the Lord’s Prayer. In the Anglican translation it reads, “And forgeve us our trespaces, as wee forgeve them that trespasse agaynst us.” But in the original Aramaic, the John Wycliffe version, that was published 160 years prior it reads, “And forgiv us oure dettis, as we forgiven oure dettours.”

All throughout human history there is this repeated pattern that people have fallen and that grace will come to save them. What’s divine and a common narrative in all this, however, isn’t paying back the debts (Because how can one pay back a cosmic debt?) but the forgiveness of debts. Debts, however over a period of time, eventually spiral out of control. So you must have some kind of period of reconciliation. Rulers and kings would cancel debts periodically, the most famous example being The Jubilee in Israel where debts were forgiven, slaves were freed, and the people were shown God’s mercy.

As debts systems continue to spiral one can’t help but think is there some kind of cancellation ahead?