The Metaphysical Structure of Creatures, Mortal and Immortal

Abstract

Ficino has approached God through two kinds of dependence — dependence in action and dependence in being. All things move or are moved for the sake of the pure unity, truth, and goodness which is God. God draws all things to himself. But he is not only the end of action; he is also the beginning. The action not only moves toward him, it arises out of him. He is the first origin of being, the creator from whom things have all that they are and hence all that they do. And insofar as they are caused not only in their action, but in their very being, there is in them an efficacy more fundamental than that from which motion and operation flow. In another account of the world’s origin, Ficino relates God’s causal act to this intrinsic causation which corresponds to it.