What came first (what is ontologically prior substance?), the category (ontology) or its members/examples (existantiation/action)? If we do not allow for an empty category (we must always ask “What referent populates this category?”), or for a category-less member/example (we must always ask, “What category is this populating?”) the answer has to be both, and the category is “merely” essential (to the observer) “until” it is both (actually, all three: category/substance, member/example/action, essence/property/force). Only to one observer is every example never “merely” essential. This observer does not merely observe from the outside, because this observer is in alignment with its observation (as a whole), which would not exist otherwise (all change subsumed in and reconciling back to the unchanging wholeness that is in all change). A true description of this (incl. a definition of The Good) does not abstract away from it & make it (the ground of The Good) superfluous; abstracting away from reality only happens when there is no referent. It’s not a mere abstraction (which would be a divergence/alienation from reality) — just a distinction [a respecting of otherness is required in unification—otherwise you are just two/three storms that cancel each other out, or one/two ends up destroying the other(s)]. Our capacity for the maximally great mirrors God’s fullness of the maximally great. We are never completely empty of the fullness — that would be an absence of existence (nothing). Rather, we are made in the image of wholeness, and cannot stay/flow wholeness (the only infinite gain that does not self/other-destruct) apart from it.