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There is no fragment or epoch of history which can be pronounced divine. The whole history of the Church and of all religion takes place in this world. What is called the "history of our salvation" is not an event in the midst of other events, but is nothing less than the Krisis of all history.

There are no saints in the midst of a company of sinners; for where men have claimed to be saints, they are thereby marked as not-saints. Their criticism and invective and indictment of the world inevitably place them — unless they themselves be its object — within the course of this world and betray that they too are of it. Their indictment springs not from their capacity to help but from their own distress; it is of this world; it is a talking about life, not life itself; its illumination is artificial; it marks no rising of the sun nor breaking of dawn. This is as true of Paul, the prophet and apostle of the Kingdom of God, and of Jeremiah, as it is of Luther, Kierkegaard and Blumhardt! It applies both to Saint Francis, who far surpassed Jesus in "love", childishness, and austerity, and to the distinctive sanctity of Tolstoy. Everything human swims with the stream either with vehement protest or with easy accommodation, even when it appears to hover above it or to engage with conflict with it. Christ is not one of the righteous. Since power belongs only to God, it is the tragic story of every man of God that he must content for the right of God by placing himself in the wrong. This must be so if the men of God are not to usurp the place of God.

— The Epistle to the Romans by Karl Barth (Page 57)

And even faith, if it proceeds from anything but a void, is unbelief; for it is then once again the appearance of the slavery of unrighteousness seeking to suppress the dawning truth of God, the disturbance of all disturbings. Here again is that contempt and presumption which fails to percieve the distance between God and man, and which inevitably exalts and enthrones the no-God of this world. Here again is that assimilation of God and man, by which God is withdrawn from His isolation.

— The Epistle to the Romans by Karl Barth (Page 56)

Chaos has found itself, and anything may happen. The atoms whirl, the struggle for existence rages. Even reason itself becomes irrational. Ideas of duty and of fellowship become wholly unstable. The world is full of personal caprice and social unrighteousness — this is not a picture merely of Rome under the Caesars! The true nature of our unbroken existence is here unrolled before us. Our ungodliness and unrighteousness stand under the wrath of God. His judgement now becomes judgement and nothing more; and we experience the impossibility of men as the real and final impossibility of God.

— The Epistle to the Romans by Karl Barth (Page 53)

We, indeed, ascribe both prescience and predestination to God; but we say, that it is absurd to make the latter subordinate to the former (see chap. 22 sec. 1). When we attribute prescience to God, we mean that all things always were, and ever continue, under his eye; that to his knowledge there is no past or future, but all things are present, and indeed so present, that it is not merely the idea of them that is before him (as those objects are which we retain in our memory), but that he truly sees and contemplates them as actually under his immediate inspection. This prescience extends to the whole circuit of the world, and to all creatures. By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which he determined with himself whatever he wished to happen with regard to every man.

— Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin

It is plain how greatly ignorance of this principle detracts from the glory of God, and impairs true humility. But though thus necessary to be known, Paul declares that it cannot be known unless God, throwing works entirely out of view, elect those whom he has predestined. His words are, “Even so then at this present time also, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then it is no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace: otherwise work is no more work,”

— Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin

How we think about historical events – this is itself conditioned historically – significantly affects these events, whereas astronomy cannot significantly affect the course of the stars. It is assumed of the views of socialisation sketched here that socialisation, as prophecy, has already begun to become a cause of its own realisation.

— Economic Writings by Otto Neurath, Thomas E. Uebel, R. S. Cohen (Page 346)

Dumb resistance and random destruction became the expression of unsatisfied proletarian longing and bitterness. These powerful forces can only become creative if socialisation, the conscious realisation of the new order of life, is based on an intellectual analysis and if utopianism becomes effective as science, as social engineering.

— Economic Writings by Otto Neurath, Thomas E. Uebel, R. S. Cohen (Page 346)

Marxists killed playful utopianism, thus saving the unity of the [Social Democratic] Party and ‘scientific rigour’, but also paralysing the resolve to think up new forms. The doctrine of historical necessity became quietism for many; what Marx said about active engagement in reconstruction was forgotten. As if conscious work on the order of society with a specific goal would be opposed to the realisation that what is willed as well as the willing are necessary for development!

— Economic Writings by Otto Neurath, Thomas E. Uebel, R. S. Cohen (Page 345)