The philosophical term ‘metaphysics’ is a misnomer.  There is no privileged vantage point ‘beyond existence’ where existence itself may be examined, since there is nothing and no one that is not embedded within being.  There is no ‘place’ one can go, even hypothetically, that is not existence. 

In this sense, the Stoics were correct in designating the study of the nature of existence ‘physics.’

Prior to any idea of deity is this wrongheaded notion of meta-, the assumption that there is a place ‘outside’ of existence.  The fundamental mistake is treating existence as if it were an existent.