Note: this question is in Social, so it’s fine to wander so long as we’re still in the general vicinity of the topic.
@Bill1939 That’s only a problem for theories that posit a god who is both immanent and transcendent. There are religions in which god or the gods are posited to be either wholly immanent or wholly transcendent.
@canidmajor In fact I’ve omitted several other possibilities (such as apatheism, ignosticism, and henotheism). But yes, I did skip over anti-theism. An anti-theist is a person who believes that theism is harmful to both individuals and societies (and who opposes its very existence on those grounds). And while the unfortunate side-effect that you describe is not necessarily required by the view, it does seem to be quite common.
@Yellowdog I’m pretty sure that @Bill1939 understands the doctrine. What he is pointing out is that immanence and transcendence can be very difficult to reconcile in one being. The doctrine that God is both immanent and transcendent has been controversial even among people who believe in it for hundreds of years and has led to sectarian divisions in Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam. It is a problem that has received huge amounts of philosophical attention, and has never been resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.
Again, even people who think it is true that God is both immanent and transcendent have expressed doubts about whether or not we currently understand how such a thing could be possible. And in the absence of an explanation, the room for doubt grows. That’s one of the main reasons that theology exists, after all: to explain to the doubting mind how matters of doctrine could be true (even if some of the gap must inevitably be filled by faith).