"Righteous Abel," says Matthew [23:34-45]. What luck! So there is a righteous race! No such thing: Abel dies leaving no children, a fact full of mean… - Jacques Ellul

The will of the world is always a will to death, a will to suicide. We must not accept this suicide, and we must so act that it cannot take place.

Cain is completely dissatisfied with the security granted to him by God, and so he searches out his own security. ... He will satisfy his desire for eternity by producing children, and he will satisfy his desire for security by creating a place belonging to him, a city.

The act of canonization itself demonstrates that these are exceptions not meant for ordinary believers. Ordinary believers should follow a path that conforms to what is natural and normal. Hence theology becomes increasingly a theology of nature and moves further apart from a theology of grace. The hard question put by Jesus: “What more are you doing than others?” is obscured. In accord with society as a whole, theology enters into a search for normality, for obedience to the “laws of nature.”