How does truth admit of more or less?  The same applies to nobility and being. One might also ask, just what does Thomas means by nobility?  How is it distinct from goodness?  How is the maximum in any genus supposed to cause everything else in that genus?  Is this formal or efficient causality?  Is this a Neo-Platonic argument from participation?  Is the argument undermined by the Angelic Doctor’s outdated and erroneous example of fire as cause of all heat?  Each issue is likely deserving of its own paper.  Yet behind all these questions (except, perhaps, the meaning of nobility), lies a more primary difficulty: the meanings of “more or less” and the “maximum” by which they are denominated. How we answer the above questions depends on our understanding of these two key features of the argument.… Read More [essay] Participation and the Divine