Only process as a whole has meaning, never the precise fleeting now; but since this process is really no more than a simple succesion of now in terms of before and after, and the history of salvation has meanwhile become pure chronology, a semblance of meaning can be saved only by introducing the idea – albeit one lacking any rational foundation – of a continuous, infinite progress.

Giorgio Agamben, Infancy and History (Verso, 2007) p. 106