Introduction

Though Bultmann and Lonergan belong to two different traditions, they share the common concern and effort of trying to accommodate the Christian faith to our modern world. Faithful to his Protestant tradition, Bultmann focuses on the distinctive role of Scripture and kergyma as the word of God. The influence and impact of the word of God on Christian life has unfortunately diminished since the Enlightenment. Baptized by the modern and scientific worldview, Christians nowadays generally find many scriptural messages nonsensical since supernatural intervention in daily life, which is so vivid in the Scriptures, has no longer any role or place in our scientific mindset. Bultmann laments that this kind of stumbling block covers and even suppresses the genuine meaning of the kerygma, which has nothing to do with looking for God's direct intervention in human life. Therefore, his project is to strip off the so-called mythological elements of the Scriptures so that the inherent challenge of God's word can once again confront its hearers.

Appropriating his Catholic tradition, Lonergan is concerned with the congealed understanding of faith and theology in terms of an exclusively classicist mindset and culture. If our world is moving towards the recognition and validation of pluralist cultures and religions, doing theology can no longer remain in the ghetto thinking that the only valid way is to start with self-evident premises, followed by logical deduction and settled in foreseeable conclusions. Otherwise, theology is destined to become irrelevant. Our scientific mindset starts with data and experience. From scattered and random data to attaining truth and value, everything is under the control of method. To develop a good method is to study and discover the inner operations of the subject. That is why Lonergan focuses his study on the transcendental structures of human consciousness. He strongly believes that only when rooted in this solid self-correcting method can a theologian mediate the Christian faith to various cultures and make it sensible to them.

The following pages comprise two parts. The first part is an attempt to study and present succinctly the rationality of Bultmann' project of demythologization and Lonergan's thought on method. Though their directions and categories are very different, their horizons merge in certain area. Thus, in the second part a comparison is presented in order to facilitate an understanding of their similarities and divergences. They both agree on the prior action of God's love or God's word, and the significance of the responsibility of the subject or the hearer of the word. Their disagreement finally dwells on their basic difference in epistemology.