Sin as debt and repentance as restitutiontranslated

The phrase "forgive us our debts" from the "Our Father" is so familiar that we often fail to notice the power of its words. And yet, the choice of the word "debts" instead of the word "sins" is not accidental.

By Petros D. Damianos (Dr. of Philosophy – NTUA Teaching Staff)

It introduces a different way of understanding human moral life, a way that shifts the focus from transgression to reparation, from guilt to responsibility, from the past of the act to the present of the pendency it leaves behind. It rests the whole of ethics on ontology and not on psychology, which is the exclusive concern of our age.

Usually sin is understood as breaking a rule or a divine commandment. The key question is whether man obeyed or disobeyed. Within this perspective, the center of gravity is in the act itself. Sin is something that happened. It is an event of the past.

The language of debt, however, changes the focus. When we talk about debt, we are not primarily interested in how it was created, but that it still exists. The point is not that I once borrowed, but that I still owe. If…