[Petronski]

They had the power of acting like gods over the people.

So you're saying one can be called "gods" without being made God? In other words, it was a metaphor?

Perhaps this liberal approach should be taken with Aquinas too. Or would that run too great a risk of destroying the bludgeon some would make of CCC460?

[Philo-Junius]

To quote the great Flannery O’Connor:

“If it’s just a metaphor, I say to Hell with it.”

It’s not a metaphor, it’s an artifact of translation caused by Protestant attempts to shoehorn all the meanings of King David’s “elohim,” St. John’s “theoi” and St. Thomas Aquinas’ “deos. into “God.”

The Divine Essence encompasses three Persons, One of Whom promised to share what the Father gave Him with us.

What do we, in principle, think of fathers who distinguish between their begotten sons and their adopted sons?