When earthly certainty sees decline and doom as inevitable …

“[The power of faith] becomes most visible where the secular power begins to dwindle, where earthly certainty sees decline and doom as inevitable. It is here that its line intersects the sinking human curve and draws up out of it what must be salvaged. This faith is the end of psychology and of world history, revaluing all downfalls because these can be the decisive dawns of the invisible salvation…the downfalls remain what they are: a humiliation and a disgrace unto death. But they are woven about with the mystery of germination, indeed, of public triumph; in God’s eyes they are not what they appear to be on earth.”