Kharlamenkov M. The Christian Genesis of the Anglo-Saxon Liberal Tradition

Kharlamenkov Mykola Mykolaiovych. The Christian Genesis of the Anglo-Saxon Liberal Tradition. – A qualification scholarly work presented as a manuscript. A dissertation submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Specialty 033 – Philosophy (Educational and Research Program “Philosophy”), Field of Knowledge 03 – Humanities. – National University “Ostroh Academy”. Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, Ostroh, 2025. The dissertation is devoted to a comprehensive socio-philosophical analysis of the Christian origins of the Anglo-Saxon liberal tradition and to establishing the religious influences on the formation of key liberal concepts. The relevance of the topic stems from the fact that liberalism is not a homogeneous ideology, particularly in its attitude toward the Christian religion. However, in contemporary Western political discourse, as well as in a significant portion of scholarly research, secularism is treated as an inherent component of liberalism, although in reality this characterizes only a part of the liberal tradition. In this regard, there is a need for more studies that would clarify and deepen the understanding of the religious preconditions of liberal ideology by reconstructing the original liberal tradition, which was historically closely connected with Christian political thought. The scientific novelty lies in overcoming the conceptual ambiguity surrounding the term “liberalism” through the application of F. Hayek’s classification of liberal traditions, which became a fundamental theoretical and methodological framework for analyzing the religious foundations of liberalism, as it directed the research toward the Anglo-Saxon tradition—a tradition that, according to Hayek himself, is compatible with the Christian worldview. Therefore, this is the first comprehensive study of the Christian foundations of precisely the Anglo-Saxon form of liberalism. For the first time, a systematic reconstruction has been carried out of the set of foundational Christian ideas found in the theories of Anglo-Saxon authors from the seventeenth to the twentieth century; the connection has been established between Protestant anti-tyrannical treatises and liberal concepts of individual liberty and limited government; it has been substantiated that the concept of conscience in the work of the eminent liberal theorist Lord Acton is an allusion to the Christian doctrine of truth and freedom (John 8:32) and constitutes the main latent cause underlying the formation of Anglo-Saxon liberalism; the influence of the Christian religion on the development of key liberal concepts has been investigated. The understanding of the evolutionary pathways through which Catholic and Calvinist social teaching penetrated liberal theory has been refined. The theoretical significance of the study lies in the development of a coherent concept of the Christian component of Anglo-Saxon liberalism and in balancing the secular interpretation of liberalism that dominates contemporary discourse. The practical significance of the results consists in their applicability for further analysis of the ideological foundations of modern political doctrines, for the development of academic courses on the history of political thought, and for understanding the value foundations of Ukrainian political culture within the context of its Western civilizational orientation.