These objections are likely to be reinforced in the minds
of those who make them by the qualifications which Buber sets for the philosophical anthropologist: that he must be an
individual to whom man's existence as man has become questionable, that he must have experienced the tension
of solitude, and that he must discover the
essence of man not as a scientific observer, removed in so far as possible from the object that he observes, but as a participant who only afterwards gains the distance from his
subject matter which will enable him to formulate the insights he has attained.
In
essence, religion is about freely and deeply held personal convictions or beliefs connected to an
individual's spiritual faith and integrally linked to one's self - definition and spiritual fulfilment, the practices
of which allow
individuals to foster a connection with the divine or with the
subject or object
of that spiritual faith.»