Henri de Lubac in the Theological Discussions about Religious and Religion at the Second Vatican Council

Abstract

The article reflects on an individual contribution into the doctrine of the Second Vatican Council (1962‒1965) of a famous French theologian Henri de Lubac (1896‒1991). Author draws the lines of his life, proposes an account of contemporary historiography. A comparative study concerning the other participants shoes an originality and potentiality of Lubac’s theological hermeneutics. As the result a kind of characteristic of his understanding towards artificial opposition between historical Christianity and Christianity in the contemporary world is shown. A question about theological relativism is related with a system of neoscholasticism, dominated from the XIXth c. H. de Lubac shows specificity of theological dynamics through the ages. The concept of implicit Christianity of E. Schillebeeckx was opposed by H. de Lubac from the point of view of a new reading of the doctrine of St. Thomas about supernaturalis. The same fundament makes possible an answer on the question about the nature of religion and of a criteria of truth, formulated as a principle of essential religious conversion.