Soul as Liability: Distressed Long-Term Debt Restructured via Messianic Redemption
Balance Sheet Existentialism, Part 2
tldr;
1. The soul is a liability because it is categorically different from the body (Cartesian) and further has the characteristic of being a debt owed to an external entity (Judeo-Christian).
2. By the allegory of original sin, the soul is born into debt with loan terms of eternal death owed to the devil.
3. By the allegory of messianic redemption, God, willing to take on humanity’s risk-return profile, used Christ’s death to pay for a secondary market transaction to buy the debt of humanity’s souls, and restructured loan terms from eternal death to eternal life.
Introduction: Soul as Liability
Previously we briefly laid out that this intellectual exercise will involve the application of Triadics - comprehending timeless concepts of the Body, Soul and Will via the framework of items in the Balance Sheet, namely the Asset, Liability and Equity respectively. This week, we will explain how the soul can be construed as a liability: specifically, by alluding to the Judeo-Christian allegory of Original Sin until Christ’s Redemption, the Soul can be understood as a distressed long-term liability with the lender/creditor originally being the devil, after which it was restructured under more favorable terms with God via Christ’s redemption.
What is the soul? The soul is categorically different compared to the body. Unlike the body, the soul is not immediately verifiable by empirical means, although it exists alongside the body. To borrow Cartesian dualism, which draws heavily from theological thought, the soul is basically immortal and occupies an entirely independent realm of existence categorically separate from the body. That is not to say they do not interact with each other at all; rather, they do not interact with each other within the same category but across different existential categories. Therefore in balance sheet terms we allocate the soul across the A=L+E (Asset=Liability+Equity) equation, on the other end separate from the body.
So yes, for all intents and purposes, the soul is to be treated categorically different from the body. If the body is an asset, we get that the soul shouldn’t be an asset as well - but then why should we understand the soul as a liability? To extend Cartesian principles, we draw from the Judeo-Christian allegory which begins with the axiom/dogma of original sin, which posits that we are all born into a state where we bear an eternal debt of sin to the devil/hell/death itself. How is all of this related to a liability? Liabilities as a category in the balance sheet, refers to all line items that we are indebted to others outside of our entity/existence. Similarly, the soul is a liability because we are indebted to the devil unto eternity.
Distressed Long-term Debt
Specifically, there is a line item under liabilities called long-term debt (as opposed to short-term debt). True to its description, long-term debt refers to debt that is due to be returned in the long term (usually > 1 year), while short-term debt refers to debt due to be returned in the short term (usually within 1 year). As a reminder, since we are talking about souls, not bodies, we are not concerned with corporeal death on earthly realms, but the metaphorical death of souls, which is a function of non-empirical realms and therefore plays within the timeframe of eternity - hence long-term.
Why is this long-term debt distressed? A distressed debt is a debt whereby the borrower is unwilling/unable to fully service the debt to the debtor, in this case when we work with the assumption that it is not favorable for our souls to burn in hell for eternity, therefore our souls exist as distressed. When a borrower is in “distress” and is unable to finance their debt obligations, a rescue in the form of restructuring the debt terms would often be necessary, most often provided by another debtor who is willing/able to take on the risk-return profile of this distressed debt instrument. For instance, if I owe Small Bank A $100 to be paid after 5 years, but I kinda squandered it all on one night stands with ladies during the 5 years, I obviously cannot service my debt obligation to Small Bank A (i.e. cannot pay back the $100). Big Bank B may come in and buy the debt from Bank A at say, $40, and since Big Bank B has loads of money and can wait longer for me to return my principal (i.e. the $100), he may restructure my debt to pay $100 after 7 years instead, which gives me 2 more years to work hard and earn back the $100.
Why would Bank A sell the debt to Bank B? Because Bank A could be cashflow tight, and needed the $40 more urgently instead of waiting for a $100 that may not even be paid back (since I spent it all on ONS). Why would Bank B want to buy the debt from Bank A? Because Bank B has plenty of cashflow and can take on higher risks, and can wait a little longer to get that extra $60 ($100 less $40), and is willing to bet that I’ll turn over a new leaf and work hard to pay it back this time round. All of these deals that Bank A and Bank B are making are called secondary market transactions, since they are like second-hand goods being sold from a first owner to a second owner.
Restructured by Messianic Redemption
Brought into our existential context, our souls are distressed long-term debt because we owe our soul to the devil unto eternity; obviously, this state of affairs is no laughing matter, and we’d be happy to get ourselves out of it ASAP. Thankfully, according to the rest of the Judeo-Christian allegory, it doesn’t end there - there is a messianic force in the manifestation of Christ, whose immaculate birth (w/o original sin) and immanent death (applicable to humanity) paid for the debt owed to the devil, and therefore replaced the loan terms of eternal death with eternal life.
So essentially in balance sheet terminologies, since we were unable to repay our distressed long-term debt to the devil (i.e. we don’t wanna burn in hell forever), God, with a higher cashflow and risk appetite/hurdle rate (internal rate of return or IRR) than the devil, did his due diligence on our souls and figured that we as humanity provided a risk-return profile that was favorable vis-a-vis his own hurdle rate. Therefore, God negotiated the devil to buy the souls of humanity via a secondary market transaction, in return he would pay the price in the form of Christ’s death; once the souls were transferred under God’s accounts, he then restructured the debt terms more favorably from eternal death to eternal life.
Eternity and its Discontents
So what is the present state of affairs (assuming a fully completed secondary market transaction)? Our souls still exist as a long-term debt, however, this time under infinitely more favorable terms (eternal life c.f. eternal death) with God as the current debtor. Now - with such a cosmic transaction completed, we got ourselves a pretty sweet deal, or did we? 2 points for further consideration: 1) it’s not as though our debt was cleared, but that only our debtor and our loan terms changed from the devil to God (we still owe some entity some debt), and 2) while restructured terms from eternal death to eternal life indeed sounds favorable in relative terms - a further question remains: do we really want eternal anything? Perhaps, life’s meaningful and beautiful only precisely because it ends.