Claim. DP reads the long history of religious cultural spheres as a directed convergence: of the 21–26 major spheres that have existed, four survive into the present (East Asian, Hindu, Islamic, Christian), and these are themselves converging into a single global cultural sphere founded on the Christian ethos. Christianity holds the “final mission” of accomplishing the goals of all religions that sought the ideal of goodness.
Elaboration. Per 2.3. Human History Is the History of the Providence of Restoration: religion outlives the political vehicles that carry it. Through cycles of dynastic rise and fall — China’s twenty-plus dynasties, India’s empires, the Islamic caliphates, Europe’s shifting hegemonies — “Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism… continued to thrive… Hinduism has survived and prospered… Islam has endured… Christianity remains vital and inextinguishable.” Sovereignty is contingent; religion persists.
“The major cultural spheres which have existed at various times in world history numbered between twenty-one and twenty-six. With the flow of history, lesser cultural spheres were absorbed by, or merged into, the more advanced spheres.” The four surviving spheres are themselves converging, with Christianity as the integrating center. DP frames this convergence as the providence’s mechanism for restoring “one united world.”
This is one of DP’s most contested claims (vs religious pluralism, e.g. Hick); the supersessionist shape is treated as evidence rather than argued separately.
See also. dp-history-is-providence-of-restoration, dp-religion-and-science-must-converge-as-united-undertaking