Anthropologist David Graeber suggests in Debt: The First 5000 Years that trading began with some form of credit namely the promise to pay later for already handed over goods.
[3] According to numbers released on March 31, 2013 by the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, household debt has passed the $11 trillion mark in the United States.
Many companies heavily invest in accountancy and rely on insolvency solutions to prevent debt from being left aside.
In the United Kingdom, the Administration of Justice Act 1970 protects debtors from harassment intended to coerce payment of a debt.
The compromise should offer a larger repayment towards the creditor's debt than could otherwise be expected were the Debtor to be made bankrupt.
This particular understanding of sin, as a form of debt that humanity inherits, is related to the soteriological theory of substitutionary atonement, which states that Jesus died on the cross as a propitiation, or substitute, for sinners.