Человек сам по себе еще не есть цель мироздания, или венец дела Божия. Такое значение принадлежит ему лишь, поскольку в нем или чрез него происходит действительное соединение Бога с творением. Это соединение, т.е. сообщение Богом всему другому полноты абсолютной жизни, составляет истинную цель миротворения.

Есть царствие Божие внутри нас, есть оно и вне нас — и совпадение того и другого, полное растворение внутреннего царствия Божия со внешним есть цель наших усилий.

The natural world, which has fallen away from the divine unity, appears as a chaos of disjointed elements. The plurality of disintegrated elements, foreign one to another, impermeable for each other, is expressed in real space. … [T]his world is not a world of unconditionally homogeneous elements; we know that every real element, every single being (atom) has its own particular individual essence (idea); and if in the divine order all those elements, positively completing one another, form a whole and harmonious organism, then in the natural order we have this same organism only disintegrated in actuality (actu); it retains its ideal unity in a latent potentiality and in its tendency [striving, desire]. The gradual actualization of this striving, the gradual realization of the ideal all-oneness, constitutes the meaning and goal of the world process. As in the divine order all eternally is the absolute organism; so by the law of natural being, all gradually becomes such organism in time.²

Thus the incarnation of the divine idea in the world, which constitutes the goal of the whole world movement, is conditioned by the union of the divine beginning with the world soul, in which the first represents the active determining, formative, or fertilizing element, while the world soul appears as the passive force which receives the ideal beginning and endues the received with matter [requisite] for its development, with the encasement [shell, frame] [which it needs] for its complete manifestation. But now a question may arise. Why does not this union of the divine beginning with the world soul, and the resultant birth of the world organism as the incarnated divine idea (the Sophia)—why does not this union and this birth take place at once, in one act of divine creation? Why are these labours and efforts necessary in the life of the world, why must nature experience the pains of birth, and why, before it can generate the perfect and eternal organism, must it produce so many ugly, monstrous broods which are unable to endure the struggle for existence and perish without a trace? Why all these abortions and miscarriages of nature? Why does God leave nature to reach her goal so slowly and by such ill means? Why in general, is the realization of the divine idea in the world a gradual and complex process, and not a single, simple act? The full answer to this question is contained in one word, which expresses something without which neither God nor nature can be conceived; that word is freedom. By a free act of the world soul, the world united by it, fell away from Divinity and fell apart within itself into the multitude of elements warring among themselves; by a long series of free acts that whole rebellious multitude must make peace among themselves and be reconciled with God, and be reborn in the form of the absolute organism.

If the true society of Godmanhood, created in the image and likeness of the God-man Himself, ought to represent a free concordance of the divine and human beginnings, then, obviously, it is conditioned by the active force of the first as well as by the co-operative force of the second. Consequently, it is required that society would, first, present the divine beginning (the truth of Christ) in all of its purity and, second, develop the principle of human initiative in all its fullness. But by the law of the development or of the growth of the body of Christ, a concomitant fulfilment of these two demands—as the highest ideal of society—could not be given all at once, but had to be attained [gradually]. That is to say, before the perfect unity [is reached], appears disunity, the disunity which, with the [general] solidarity of mankind, and the law of the division of histoncal functions following from it, was expressed as a partition of the Christian world into two halves, in which the East with all the forces of its spirit was attached to the divine [beginning] and preserved it, working out in itself the conservative and ascetic attitude necessary for that [function]; while the West applied its whole energy to the development of the human element, which was necessarily detrimental to the [conservation] of the divine truth, which was at first mutilated and then altogether repudiated. The above makes it clear that the two historical trends, far from excluding each other, have been absolutely necessary to each other and for the 'fullness of the stature of Christ' in all humanity; for if history were limited to the Western development only, if the immovable and unconditional principle of the Christian truth did not stand behind this uninterrupted stream of movements [which were] replacing one another, and of principles [which were] mutually destructive, the whole Western development would have been devoid of any positive sense, and modern history would have ended in decadence and chaos. On the other hand, had history included only the Byzantine Christianity, the truth of Christ (Godmanhood) would have remained imperfect, in the absence of a [developed] human element of free initiative and activity necessary for its perfection. As it is, however, the divine element of Christianity, preserved by the East, can now reach its perfection in mankind, for now it has the material upon which it can act, in which it can manifest its internal force: namely, the human element which has been emancipated and developed in the West. And this has not only an historical, but also a mystical, meaning.