Berdyaev observed that the passive way of understanding apocalypse has always predominated Christian consciousness via a sense of foreboding and passive waiting for the end because most Christians believe that the fate of the world is determined by God exclusively — divine judgment and all that.
From another perspective, the end of the world is not an exclusively divine matter. Man also participates in the world, be it creatively or destructively. Seen this way, the end of the world also depends on man’s activity. So, how should man approach the end of the world?
On the one hand, he can assume it is all in God’s hands and wait for the inevitable in passive terror or prepare for it actively and creatively.
According to Berdyaev, apocalyptic consciousness can be conservative and reactionary or revolutionary and creative.
The world is always coming to an end. At the same time, the world is also always beginning. The world has ended countless times in history and every time some movement in history drew to a close, another emerged.
Movements of history aside, the individual world of every person ends in a personal apocalypse. The world may continue despite everything, but we know beyond a doubt that we as individuals will not, at least not in this mortal coil.
Whether the world ends should be of secondary significance to the certainty of our mortal lives ending. How will we choose to face our individual apocalypses when they arrive? The same way we choose to face the end of the world apocalypse?
Will we stare aghast in horror at the ruin of everything we sanctified, or will we greet our inevitable demise actively and creatively?
Will we fixate on the end and see no more, or will we recognize the end as a beginning and concentrate on preparing for that beginning with creativity, hope, and love?
If we spent more time being revolutionary and creative about the inevitable end of our personal worlds, we could change the tentative end of the world into something that it ought to be.