The world itself cannot jump over the border of time and Eternity. But God comes out to meet him: God became man so that man would become a god, that is, not remain in bestiality. But to become a god means to gain something, and to lose something. "The image of this world is passing away" (1 Corinthians 7:31). Namely, the image, that is, the mode of being of this world, is gone, but not the world itself. The modes of created being: time and space (space as the incompatibility of the one and the many; time as the inevitability of loss and destruction) are disappearing.

Time can leave the world because it does not need it. If the world had arisen through willless emanations from the Divine Essence, if the world had not arisen by the free will of the Creator, but had been a certain necessary stage of degradation of spiritual energy separating from its Primary Source (this is how the emergence of the world is thought of in Gnosticism, Neoplatonism, and Hinduism), then the world could not exist without time. Time would then arise as a necessary and inevitable consequence of the distance from the Eternal Primeval Being. And a return to the Source would mean not only the elimination of time, but also the world with it. There is a world different from the Divinity, and there is also time. If there is no time, there is no peace. The world, akin to time, could not but disappear, dissolve where there is no time, in Divine Eternity.

But the God of the Bible freely endowed the world with temporality. Time did not precede the creation of the world. The world is not dissolved in time. And therefore it may be that "time will be no more" (Rev. 10:6), but the world will be.

The God of the Bible creates the world consciously and freely. Unlike Brahma, He does not sleep. He sees his creation and blesses it (cf. Gen. 1:31). Since the world does not flow out of the Divinity weak-willedly, uncontrollably, and constantly, there is no idea in Christianity of the constant renewal of the world, the idea of eternal return, of cyclical history. The world should not be next to God. God can exist without the creation of the world. God is not doomed to constantly generate worlds, to pour them out of His depths.

Since God does not create the world weak-willedly, but consciously, He knows what purpose He sets for the world. God knows the meaning of history.

But meaning is something that is beyond the event. Meaning is always "outside". If history has meaning, then history must have its limit: otherwise it will not have that "outside," that Goal that would justify the entire flow of history.

If history serves nothing, then there is no Value that would make it valuable. An attempt to create a theory of historical progress without Christianity is an attempt to transfer to Europe the pagan idea of a senselessly revolving "wheel of samsara", but only without the idea of the plurality of life: each of us has one, only life, and it should simply lie down as "dung" in the happiness of future generations. Thinking that we should live for the good of future generations is a reflection that can only be used in a barnyard. There, too, the meaning of the existence of an individual is provided by the fact that the milk flow of the herd becomes higher over time. In this case, the philosophy of history turns into the philosophy of animal husbandry.

After Dostoevsky with his "tear of a child", it is simply shameful to believe that all history and the disappearance of thousands of generations are nothing more than dung that fertilizes the comfort of distant descendants. The meaning of History and life can only be such a meaning that would be attainable and granted to each of the generations, to each of the people. This meaning must be outside of history, and at the same time it must be comprehensible and attainable from any point of history. Only if we say that the goal of human life and, accordingly, of history is the eternity of the life of each of the people, only then will our view of history be truly human. The meaning of life is not that someday my descendants will be able to live the 70 or 90 years allotted to them with maximum comfort[16], but that everyone's life can be perceived as a good eternity.

The meaning of life is to live. The question is about the quality of life. It is clear that we can hardly talk about material comfort. Will a person agree if he is offered: we give you a million, but in an hour we will shoot you? And the multiplication of the world of culture and scientific knowledge will not fill the whole human life with meaning either. Remember Turgenev: "And in this, in my opinion, lies the highest bliss! "In the possession of the Truth?" –Of course. –Let me; Are you able to imagine the following scene? Several young people have gathered, talking among themselves... And suddenly one of their comrades runs in: his eyes shine with an extraordinary brilliance, he gasps with delight, he can hardly speak. "What is it? What is it?" – "My friends, listen to what I have learned, what truth! The angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection! Or here's another: between two points the shortest way is a straight line!" – "Really! Oh, what bliss!" – all the young people shout and throw themselves into each other's arms with tenderness.. You're laughing... That is the point: Truth cannot bring bliss.. "[17] For human happiness it is necessary to touch the Truth that concerns the supra-animal, supra-natural essence of man.

Цель жизни в том, чтобы придать жизни такое качество, которое помогло бы жить невзирая на то, что даже время уже истекло. Жить Вечно. Эта вечность не встроена в человека изначально. Но Она сама так низко склоняется к земле, что ее можно впустить в себя. Человек не обладает Вечностью. Но Она может быть ему подарена.

Итак, у истории есть замысел, есть Смысл. Но если мир делает себя закрытым для Замысла, – то история кончается. Прекращается движение к смыслу, за свои пределы (трансцендирование). Мир прекращает перерастать самого себя. Если мир не стремится за свои пределы – он гниет и исчезает. Так акула, остановившись, тонет.

Еще один парадокс христианства: мир кончится потому, что он должен быть преображен в Божией Любви, – и мир кончится потому, что «по причине умножения беззакония… охладеет любовь» (Мф.24, 12). Мир призван Любовью к вечности, но если он не откликается на этот призыв – он распадается. Следовательно, конец есть разделение. С Богом будет то, что не может не быть. Остальное погрузится в небытие. Когда иерархически низшее навяжет себя среднему – лишь Свыше сможет придти спасение.

Значит, – проблема эсхатологии в нас, в нашей иерархии ценностей. От нас зависит будущее России – Православия – христианства – человечества –Вселенной. Это реализм категорического императива Канта (‘’поступай так, как если бы твоя воля стала бы законом для всей Вселенной, чья история начинается лишь с этого момента’’). Эсхатологическое уточнение кантовской формулы таково: если твоя воля, будучи злокачественной, действительно станет законом для всей Вселенной, – то история Вселенной этим моментом закончится…

Христианство в цивилизации досуга