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A characteristic feature of the contribution made by the Dominican theologian Yves Congar to the Catholic thought of the 20th century is the distinct ecumenical openness of the researcher, his theological inclusiveness, his concern for the life of the Church in the modern world, and his prophetic reformist pathos, which were quite naturally combined together with Congar's deep knowledge and appreciation of the most profound and most valuable layers of the ancient Christian tradition of the undivided Church's era. The article is based on a detailed review of three basic treatises by Yves Congar in which the author elaborates his ecumenically oriented program of implementing effective and at the same time safe reforms in the Church: (1) Chrétiens désunis: Principes d'un "oecuménisme" catholique, (2) Vraie et fausse réforme dans l'Église, and (3) a two-volume study La Tradition et les traditions (Vol. 1: La Tradition et les traditions: essai historique; Vol. 2: La Tradition et les traditions: essai théologique). The relevance and topicality of this research for the sphere of Ukrainian religious life is determined by numerous crisis phenomena in the life of contemporary traditional Christian denominations, their vague forms of self-understanding and self-presentation, unconvincing rhetoric in communication with a deeply secular world, as well as not always successful and effective horizontal network interaction with the newly emerging full-fledged civil society of Ukraine. Therefore, this study can become an important and appropriate attempt to popularize and emphasize one of the most ambitious, comprehensive, and ultimately quite successful attempts of the 20th century Church renovation projects, which can be laid as a basis for the process of forming a renewed theological mentality of contemporary Ukrainian Christian communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urgency of the research. In the first half of the 20th century the world-renowned specialist in Thomism Réginald GarrigouLagrange became the one who threw a public intellectual challenge to the most prominent bearers of the modernist philosophical mentality, namely, Henri Bergson (the doctrine of fluid metaphysics) and Maurice Blondel (the dynamic philosophy of action). Today, when we hear more and more often about the final and irreversible onset of the post-metaphysical age, it seems appropriate to recall how convincingly less than a hundred years ago classical Thomistic metaphysics refuted the most powerful and influential philosophical trends which today had totally lost their previous relevance and can be regarded as merely an object of study for historians of philosophy. Target setting. The analysis of modern Ukrainian studies in the field of scholasticism, neo-scholasticism, and, in particular, the Thomist tradition, has illustrated a difficult-to-explain problem regarding the fact that an interested Ukrainian researcher nowadays is barely able to find at least some information about the history of polemics, metaphysics, and epistemology of R. Garrigou-Lagrange, one of the most significant thinkers in the realm of the neo-scholastic tradition of the previous century. Therefore, filling this lacuna seems to be an urgent and necessary issue. Actual scientific researches and issues analysis. The research is based on the analysis of some works by GarrigouLagrange himself and treatises by the philosophical opponents of the prominent Dominican priest, as well as on the in-depth study of the researches made by following thinkers and scholars: É. Gilson, G. McCool, F. Kerr, R. Peddicord, J. Kirwan, and M. Minerd. The research objective. The main goal of the article is to highlight the polemical philosophical moves of GarrigouLagrange, as well as to emphasize the role of Aquinas’s synthesis as a highly effective and irremovable theoretical framework for dismantling metaphysically weak philosophical programs. The statement of basic materials. H. Bergson did not associate himself with the Church at all, and M. Blondel was a sincere and devout Catholic, but both of them barely knew enough about the basic essentials of the Thomist tradition. For Bergson the concepts of discursive intelligence were not related to being; their function was merely practical. Instead, Blondel’s philosophy was formed in a pushback from (1) post-Kantian idealism with its highly radical anti-metaphysicalism and skepticism concerning the human possibility of knowing external, extramental entities (“things in themselves”), as well as (2) from Friedrich Schleiermacher’s pessimism about the capacity of the speculative mind to know God and his emphasis on the fundamental importance of subjective religious sensibility. Conclusions. It has been established that Garrigou-Lagrange’s sincere devotion to Thomistic canons of thought did not prevent the theologian from indirectly, episodically, and implicitly relying on sources that are not characteristic of the Thomist tradition. Now it is difficult to deny that Garrigou-Lagrange’s philosophical and theological concept is brilliantly thought out, strictly logical, internally consistent, and precisely in view of all the mentioned factors, his concept is rationally more acceptable than any form of intuitionism, phenomenological reduction, and philosophy of life with a revision of the traditional understanding of truth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an analysis of a reaffirmation of St. Thomas Aquinas's synthesis as the only non-alternative form of authentic Catholic philosophizing in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the light of the papal encyclicals Aeterni Patris and Studiorum Ducem, the author has carried out an overview of the basic motives for the canonization of Aquinas' conceptual system which initially had been vied upon by Popes as an intellectual antidote against the intoxicating mistakes of Modernity for protecting the Church's official teaching. However, it is also shown in the paper that the neo-scholastic project contained not only an oppositional mentality and negative self-identification based on the critical repulsion from the age of Modernity, but it also had a powerful previously undisclosed heuristic potential as well. This claim is substantiated by the revealed thematic diversity, ideological plurality, and teleological goal-setting of neo-Thomism's various forms and subdivided branches. The diversiform neo-Thomist intellectual project proves the existence of its rather elastic doctrinal boundaries which enable the movement's capability of preserving relevance and openness to the contemporary intellectual challenges without removing its core historical doctrinal frame. It is also noted that the multiplicity of forms of neo-Thomism primarily emerged due to the posting of various epistemological issues as a primary basis. As a result, this methodological approach artificially increased the number of starting points for further philosophical explorations within the neo-Thomist project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urgency of the research. In the first half of the 20th century Catholic theology faced new intellectual challenges and a wave of modernization processes, which required a thoughtful theological response from leading contemporary Catholic thinkers. At the time of the current dominance of postmetaphysical and postmodern patterns of thinking, when the traditional issues of Christian ontology are being revised or relativized, the researches of the most prominent neo-Thomists of the 20th century appear to be newly relevant as significant attempts to construct a holistic, conceptual, and consistent philosophic vision of reality. Target setting. The prevailing liberal theological discourse always brands any ambitious attempt at large-scale theological systematization and conceptualization as allegedly narrow-minded traditionalism and irrelevant paleoconservatism. E. Gilson and the great amount of his theological and philosophical work are worth a new careful rethinking, given the tendency of modern theology to ideological fragmentation, decomposition, and marginalization of a holistic system of Christian doctrines. Actual scientific researches and issues analysis. The article is based on the analysis of a number of primary sources with taking into account the work of such researchers in the field of Gilsonian neo-Thomism as F. Murphy, B. Shanley, G. Grisez, A. Maurer, D. Kiryanov and A. Dakhniy. The research objective. The primary aim of the article is to identify the basic system-building ideas that E. Gilson has placed at the core of his concept of Christian philosophy. The statement of basic materials. Gilson managed to creatively present, update, and reveal the heuristic potential of Thomism as a paradigmatic system of metaphysical and epistemological realism, which had proved its historical continuity and notable influence even on the founders of the rational discourse of the Enlightenment. Gilson’s merit also lies in his expression of the constitutive role of human reason in the construction of Christian philosophy, as well as in the fact that he did not attempt to mask a possible lack of argument by appealing to the doctrine of divine revelation. The researcher advocated the need for the creative rethinking of Thomism as a dialogical system of ideas and emphasized the inadequacy of the uncritical repetition of Aquinas’ teachings in the frozen historical form in the context of new unprecedented challenges. Conclusions. Gilson did not attempt to synthesize medieval philosophical ideas with modern intellectual constructions for creating his own complex and eclectic system. Gilson’s key goal was the reassertion of a complex Thomistic vision of reality against the background of dismantled ideological programs of emasculated hyperrationality (with a bias towards extreme scientism) and cumbersome forms of idealism. The researcher managed to disprove the established stereotype regarding the alleged degradation and primitivization of philosophy during the Middle Ages, demonstrated strong arguments in favor of the presence of unceasing philosophical progress and ingenious original insights during the mentioned historical period, and also masterfully substantiated and legitimized the fundamental possibility of Christian philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urgency of the research. In the 20th century the postmodern intellectual context challenged the rational discourse of modern era, as well as it questioned not only those approaches which had been used before that in philosophy and natural sciences, but also in the field of theology and exegetics. In the new intellectual and cultural conditions of the present, historicalcritical exegesis needs careful rethinking from the prospect of the most powerful biblical studies of the 20th and 21st centuries, with its encroachment on absolute objectivity and solid impartiality, Target setting. Popularity of the historical biblical studies in the scientific and church communities are focused on absolutization of historical and critical approaches towards bible texts. Thus, it requires some balanced and serious evaluation by means of alternative approaches that had been developed in the 20th century, but nowadays are being forced out on margins of western academic biblical studies. Actual scientific researches and issues analysis. PhD thesis of Richard Burnett, as well as other works of J. Webster, M. Wallace, G. Bromiley, H. Hartwell, G. Hunsinger and others are devoted to the review of Karl Bart's attitude to historical critical exegesis and his own theological. The orthodox view on this issue was worked out by J. Breck, T. Stilianopulos and J. Karavidopulos. The research objective. In respect of the attempts to absolutize the historical-critical discourse in modern biblical studies and thus to relativize the centuriesold experience of conceptual perception of the Bible as the Word of God, the researchers are tasked with carrying out of the apology for holistic theological exegesis of biblical texts. The aim of this article is to make a creative and critical rethinking of the role of historicaloriented exegesis in the modern context and to try to adapt the positive achievements of this methodology to the modern requirements. The statement of basic materials. According to the general concepts of modern era, scientific-critical exegesis aims to rationalize the learning process of biblical texts and deal with it on the same level with other literary works of the ancient. The attitude to modern biblical hermeneutics varies from radically negative to carefully positive in the theological and academic world of the 20th century. The philosophic hermeneutics of the 20th century (in particular, Paul Ricoeur) questioned the adequacy and prospects of the fundamental principles of the modern biblical studies and its encroachment on non-distorted objectivity in its researches Conclusions. The methods of the historical-critical analysis of the Bible are characterized by some creativity potential and the ability to make the deep contextual approach possible towards biblical texts. At the same time the poststructural criticism and deconstructivism deprived the historical-critical exegesis of its monopolistic status in the market of intellectual ideas. Historical critical exegesis with its hermetic impermeability for any other approaches turns inevitably into some kind of rationalistic, idealistic or historical theology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: the purpose of this article is to fi nd the most important socio-political factors, which had an impact on the Barth’s revision of his attitude towards liberal protestant theology of the XIX century and the optimistic view on human nature. Methods of research: the comparative analysis of the main works of the most infl uential researchers of the Karl Barth’s theological heritage; the study of connection between the political issues of the fi rst half of’ the twentieth century and their impact on the Karl Barth’s neo-orthodox theology. Conclusions: the main political factors of infl uence on the Barth’s theology were as follows: the letter of the 93 German intellectuals, the beginning of World War I, the rise to power of the National Socialist German Workers’ party; these events caused Barth’s radical criticism towards any ‘natural theology’ and formed his neo-orthodox theological views. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]