Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned: the dynamics of faith are the dynamics of man’s ultimate concern. Man, like every living being, is concerned about many things, above all about those which condition his very existence, such as food and shelter. But man, in contrast to other living beings, has spiritual concerns—cognitive, aesthetic, social, and political. Some of them are urgent, often extremely urgent, and each of them as well as the vital concerns can claim ultimacy for a human life or the life of a social group. […] If faith is the state of being ultimately concerned, all preliminary concerns are subject to it. The ultimate concern gives depth, direction and unity to all other concerns and, with them, to the whole personality (Streib and Hood 141).
This quote substantiates the claim that there exists a hierarchical order in religion in which God is wholly spiritual but reaches to human being by calling them to practice asceticism. The transcendence nature of God, a theory adopted by most religions is the basis of His ability to relate with individual who live a pious life through observing certain ascetic practices (Streib and Hood 142). Indeed, through the theory of transcendence, the “spiritual” obtains a mechanism of interaction with the physical (human beings).