Immanent

Is god an immanent or a transcendent being?

Is God the first cause or the immanent cause?

However, whether they are gods depends on definition. In many religious traditions, a god isn’t just powerful but also a fundamental source of existence—either creating the universe (transcendent) or embodying it (immanent). Extraterrestrials, no matter how advanced, might still be contingent beings—products of the same cosmic processes as us—rather than the ultimate origin of reality. So, they could be deemed gods by some, but philosophically, they might not fit the full criteria.

Extraterrestrials could be seen as gods if their powers dazzle us, but they’d differ from an immanent or transcendent God by being finite, physical beings within the universe, not its root. A hierarchy of beings—us, them, and beyond—fits both religious and speculative frameworks, potentially stretching from the mundane to the near-divine. Whether there’s an ultimate God atop it all, or just an endless progression of "higher" entities, depends on your worldview. What do you think—does the idea of a cosmic pecking order resonate with you, or do you lean toward a singular divine capstone?

An immanent God is the universe’s pulse—think Spinoza’s pantheism, where God is nature, or certain Buddhist views of an all-pervading cosmic principle. Extraterrestrials, even if they’ve merged with technology to become planet-sized hive minds, remain distinct entities within the universe. They might manipulate reality in ways that feel divine—say, turning stars into energy grids—but they’re not the stars themselves, nor the laws that govern them. An immanent God’s essence is inseparable from all that exists; aliens, however advanced, are still players on the cosmic stage, not the stage itself.

The theory of evolution, as thus set forth, the theory of the evolution of all from one self-existent immanent principle, is nowadays considered not only as the fullest explanation ever given of the unity and order of the universe, being a system of perfect monism, plainly reasoned out in all its details, but also the only one which, as overcoming any kind of dualism, gives satisfaction to the human mind. For, if one and the self-same principle is not the source of all, existing unity cannot prevail throughout creation. If this one principle is not supposed to be immanent in the world, nature is not explained from itself, but rather is rendered unintelligible; that which is plain and visible in it being accounted for by something unseen and unknown. And, if this one immanent principle is not regarded as absolutely independent and self-existent, it becomes necessary to conceive of the universe as conditioned without perceiving any cause or condition on which it is dependent, and to ascribe the orderly and constant succession of phenomena, not to an agent working according to law, but to arbitrary creative will.

We are born, as the Apostle says, the children of wrath. It is not an impersonal nature which is guilty, for this would be a contradiction, but persons whose immanent, subjective state is opposed to the character and law of God.

At the same time it has been common, and we intend to show that it is important, to distinguish one class of volitions from another. Those which terminate on some action of our own, have been called deliberate acts — and imperate acts of the will, and not unfrequently determinate acts — because they are more the result of deliberation, and determine and govern the action on which they fix; while those which contemplate no action as their immediate result, are called immanent acts of the will. They remain in the mind, and do not flow out into action.