The Western idea that history moves toward an endpoint descends from Christian eschatology

Evidence

For the ancient Greeks, time was not linear; history was cyclical. But in the Abrahamic tradition, history would come to an end with Salvation. Indeed, the meaning of everything that had ever happened previously would be resolved and defined by that final moment. For those of us who live in the wake of this tradition, time is a line, an arrow pointing to the End Times. As European intellectuals began to question their absolute fealty to Christian faith, this understanding of time was transformed, but never discarded. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 159

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains the concept of historical teleology by tracing it to Abrahamic salvation history.
• XREF: connects to: Christianity functions as the axial pivot of world history’s turning — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 827; Christianity functions as the pivot splitting all history into before and after; The Dialectic of Enlightenment assembled scattered ideas into a theology-based philosophy of history — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1435 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Secular ideologies replicate religious salvation-history as a narrative form. #corroborates (0.92) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1831
• Secularization of history simultaneously sacralized profane events into a singular subject #expands (0.85) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 195
• The Dialectic of Enlightenment assembled scattered ideas into a theology-based philosophy of history #expands (0.82) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1435
• Eurocentrism positions European norms as the implied endpoint of world history #exemplifies (0.80) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1140
• The universalized theology of progress makes historians unconsciously reproduce imperial hierarchies #qualifies (0.79) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 209
• Christianity functions as the axial pivot of world history’s turning #expands (0.78) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 827
• Christianity functions as the pivot splitting all history into before and after #expands (0.76)
• Christian historiography fused biblical and Roman imperial history via Eusebius #expands (0.75) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 97
• Philology inherited religion’s historical worldview while losing its coherence #expands (0.73) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 358
• Premillennial eschatology structurally undermines social justice commitment #qualifies (0.72) — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long, 265
• European civilization persists through secularized Christian institutional heritage even as belief declines #expands (0.71)