Volume 29, Issue 1, January 2012
Lawrence Pasternack
Pages 30-52
Kant on the Debt of Sin
Kant follows Christian tradition by asserting that humanity is sinful by nature, that our sinful nature burdens us with an infinite debt to God, and that it is possible for us to undergo a moral transformation that liberates us from sin and from its debt. Most of the secondary literature has focused on either Kant’s account of sin or our liberation from it. Far less attention has been paid to the debt in particular. The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of this debt, why Kant regards it as infinite, and what becomes of it for those who undergo a moral transformation.