Thomas Molnar's The Pagan Temptation...

Pages 154 - 155.

"The Christian combines in every order of existence and without any internal contradiction the spiritual and the temporal, the transcendent and the incarnate, the active and the obedient, the prophetic and the historical, the worshiper and the citizen.

"This is because the Christian God is the creator of separate beings and things outside Himself, which are thus endowed with selfhood, individuality, and freedom."

Now: SMM's so - called FAITH - SHARING theology!

"We have all met people who resent it as an affront and insist, with arguements or emotions, that the human and the divine are one substance, though there may be more of this substance (or the substance may be in amore refined state) in the latter than in the former.

"Their arguements do not resort to reason [in SMM's Faith - Sharing in particular!]; they more often are prompted by subjective feelings and self - will [our 3 SMM deacons' opposition to the death - penalty is a case in point!].

"They feel that their view of things is more correct and true.

"The Asian creed puts forward its claim in much the same manner as Western [SMM Faith - sharing style] pantheism and thus appeals to those who profess to feel a continuity with the divine.

"In the Orient, writes Maurus Heinrichs, man is defined, not by reason, but by the heart. The intellectual faculties are situated on the periphery of the human being, and man expresses his essential self on the ethical mode alone."