The intrinsic direction of divine creation - therefore including human history - is towards more consciousness, more freedom

If the direction of God's creation is towards greater consciousness, hence greater freedom, of Beings; then the direction of history is one of individual Men and Mankind's response to greater consciousness. 

In effect, Mankind has greater consciousness and freedom thrust upon him by the direction of divine creation; and the contingent aspect of history is a story of the sum of how individuals and groups have responded to this imperative. 

This does not mean that Man is passive and response merely; and there is no reason in principle (and sometimes in practice) that a Man or a group of Men (a tribe, nation, civilization  for instance) cannot devise their own spiritual agenda (or indeed non-spiritual or anti-spiritual agenda - as in the modern West), which will then interact with the underlying direction of creation. 

But underneath whatever other factors may be in-play; there will always be this trend towards greater self-awareness, greater autonomy from the world; a compulsion of freedom, choice, and personal responsibility. 

Thus history is linear, and never repeats, because human consciousness (and indeed the consciousness of all Beings) has this developmental aspect. Even when social features are retained or recur, things are different because the Men are differently set-up - have a different nature.  

By analogy; Mankind has gone through childhood and into an adolescence - and this developmental direction is mandatory, much as it is in the development of an organism. 

For instance; adolescence can only be stopped by adding pathology to prevent it - but interventions to sabotage development do Not retain the state of childhood, they merely prevent adolescence. 

(I regard oneness spirituality and religions, such as Buddhism, as versions of the attempt to return Mankind to the state of early-childhood, or ultimately to pre-creation beingness. This cannot succeed in mortal life, because we live in divine creation. If such attempts succeed after death, then the soul is simply removed from creation.) 

And the same applies to the transition from adolescence to adulthood, which is the transition currently underway in creation and beneath culture. 

(In a crude sense, the 1960s counter-culture was a necessarily failed attempt to arrest Western Man at the stage of adolescence, or to revert adults to adolescence. It succeeded only in preventing maturity, or imposing a superficial caricature of adolescent behaviour - but did not retain the essentially transformational quality of adolescence; because that is a product of dawning consciousness and inner freedom.)  

Our civilizational response to the underlying onset of spiritual maturity has been and is to prevent adulthood, by the denial of personal freedom and responsibility. 

But this sabotaging of spiritual development does Not keep Mankind in a state of adolescence, it leads to a pathological form of maturity - symptoms of which we see all around us.