  How then does Dietrich distinguish God from creature? We have already seen that according to his basic metaphysics Dietrich insists on the equation of existence and essence for all beings. The Thomistic distinction of essence and existence will not be permitted. Nor does Dietrich wish to distinguish God from creatures by postulating a theory of universal hylomorphism, which is the view that all creatures, even spiritual ones, are marked as creatures by the possession of some form of materiality. Spiritual creatures, Dietrich argues in a question devoted to this topic, possess no form of materiality. How then do we distinguish uncreated being from created being and the various forms of created being? The answer involves a reference to their essential relations to each other in the universe of beings, that is by the essential place they occupy in the chain of beings in which every being is essentially ordered to some other being as either its cause or its effect. God is at the top of this chain. “God,” Dietrich tells us in the first part of De intellectu et intelligibili, “means that than which nothing is superior, which stands in need of nothing with respect to either being or operation.” All other beings are ordered under God and to each other in an essential ordering. This is what Dietrich means by place. He does not mean some accidental relation like being to the left or to the right of something—a relation that can change without changing the nature of the being enjoying the relation. Hierarchical location for Dietrich is essential.  It might be referred to as the dignity of beings, denoting the unique set of relations a being occupies. We can see this concept of place or dignity in the definition of God mentioned above: God means that than which nothing is superior. This description uniquely defines his place in the hierarchy of being. Following an ancient tradition Dietrich also tells us that God is called unity and is the first cause because he is beyond all human language to describe. In other words Dietrich identifies God with the ineffable One that he found mentioned in the Liber de causis. But even this ineffability defines God’s place with respect to the universe of beings.