There is an ideal world that coexists with the real world, a world of noumena and a world of phenomena. Nature parallels the individual mind. The natural, sensual world of phenomena is a representation by which we may better comprehend the world of noumena. God is energy, a force, not a particular separate being. God breathes through nature and man attempts to open himself up to this influx.
Nothing is static.
The greatest goal is to achieve the transcendental moment, the moment when one is open to the to and fro flow of the influx. Though not essentially a religion, transcendentalism is fraught with theological consequences. A case could be made for transcendentalism as a form of secular religion, as opposed to revealed religion. Man is at the center of a fundamentally moral universe. Ethically the central concept is self-reliance.