The monograph reconstructs this cultural-theoretical image of the concept of "religion," which was formed by key figures among philosophers and theologians who accepted "man," "human essence," and "human nature" as the conceptual core of their approach to it. This conceptual-chronological chain (from the last quarter of the 18th century to the last quarter of the 20th century) includes various cultural-philosophical trends: the so-called speculative philosophy – transcendental idealism (I. Kant), "objective" idealism (G. W. F. Hegel); romanticism – the "sentimental theology" of F. Schleiermacher; the philosophical anthropology of L. Feuerbach; the historical materialism of K. Marx; M. Weber's "understanding" sociology; A. Toynbee's philosophical-historical interpretation; Z. Freud's psychoanalytic approach and its evolution in E. Fromm; P. Tillich's existentialist type of "theology without God." In the context of these figures and methods, the approaches of a number of other philosophers of religion, religious philosophers, and humanists philosophizing on religion are examined in a comparative manner, such as: F. Nietzsche, S. Kierkegaard, A. Bergson, J.-J. Rousseau, M. Buber, G. Simmel, N. Berdyaev, P. Berger, and others. Thus, the concept of "religion" is understood and linked to the concept and understanding of human nature, of the essence of man as a methodological matrix, as a perspective on selected historical and philosophical material, and on this basis, a typology of corresponding cognitive models is proposed.