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Circular Versus Linear History Assignment
Edward A. Gonzalez
College of Arts & Sciences, Liberty University
CSTU 101 Western Culture (D01)
Professor Dennis Rawls
November 6, 2023
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Circular Versus Linear History Assignment
The two views on history from the perspective of the early Christians and the ancient
Greeks differ greatly; on one hand, Christians held what’s known as a ‘linear’ view on history,
where it’s stated to be similar to ‘a corporate chart displaying throughs and peaks while in the
long term moving in an upward direction’ (Sproul, 2009) to describe how history flows while
ancient Greeks believed in the ‘cyclical’ historical perspective, which focuses on the repetition of
historical events in a cycle. From the perspective of a Christian, the linear view would follow
more in line with the teachings of the Bible and our core beliefs as followers of God. To start it
off, the linear view takes into consideration the presence of a ‘beginning’, which is something
that also falls in line with the Bible as God starts everything into motion at the beginning of
Genesis. This aspect would contrast with the cyclical perspective as, according to its meaning,
would imply that there is no definite beginning or ending as it’s an endless cycle that continues
to repeat, being something that the Greeks would follow as they believed in their gods and
goddesses maintaining control over the world and its natural order. Like the presence of a
beginning in the linear view, there is also the presence of an ending rather than a continuous
cycle of events that cyclical argues in favor of. For the Christian, the ‘end’ can come in the form
of the second coming of Christ, which also initiates a new beginning with the establishment of
God’s kingdom on Earth and His reign for a thousand years; on the other hand, the linear view
says that there really is never a sense of moving forward or backward as they continue to follow
the same path of events for all time.
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References
Sproul, R. C. (2009, December 1). Moving Toward the Goal of History. Ligonier Ministries.
https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/moving-toward-goal-history
