Conclusion

The contribution of Bultmann's demythologization is to recover and emphasize the cognitive meaning of eschatology and the kingdom of God as the entry point of interpreting the kergyma, transcending the stumbling block of mythological language. It confronts Christian authenticity to have faith in God though living in a mundane world that is short of any horizon of the transcendent. In fact, this reality of secularization is actually the best accommodation for sharpening and fostering the genuineness of faith. For Bultmann, any human construct seemingly facilitating the justification and persuasiveness of faith exactly contradicts the essence of faith. A person of faith has no other support or reliance than God, not even his own intelligence or reason. What dignity of faith and what a noble mission we Christians are called to! We cannot but admire Bultmann's conviction of God's presence in the world without seeing God's trajectory. His scholarly work has no doubt encouraged many to reach up to the splendour of faith.

On the other hand, we acknowledge, from Lonergan's point of view, the limitation of Bultmann's perspective of the Scriptures that focuses only on the cognitive meanings of eschatology and the kingdom of God. The polymorphism of human consciousness and the momentum of human eros, in fact, not only envisage the exigency of human freedom and responsibility here and now, but also raise questions about understanding different dimensions of reality, whether they are social, political, historical, psychological, etc., and marshals evidence in order to make judgments on them. Lonergan sees no conflict between these operations as Bultmann does. Many differences between the two figures can be boiled down to their basic epistemological stands. While Bultmann sees the objectifying process of reason simply as a human mental construct, which falls short of reaching reality as such, Lonergan believes that the transcendental precepts lead the subject to attain truth and value in an ongoing process.

Finally, both Bultmann and Lonergan remind us of possible pitfalls. If in philosophical terms Heidegger understands this pitfall as our forgetfulness of Being, in theological categories Bultmann sees our problem as hanging on to good works in terms of technological and rational achievements, losing sight of forfeiting the established security and instead placing total trust in God here and now. In a similar way, Lonergan understands our progress and authenticity as always precarious due to our refusal to engage with the transcendental precepts. Consequently, truth is ignored and lower values prevail. From different perspectives and using different categories, both of them see the same significance of the authenticity of the subject that can no longer simply be attached to the past. There is no "second hand" faith. Each one has to actualize his or her self-appropriation of faith before God and for God by being attentive, being intelligent, being reasonable, and finally being responsible.