Diotimos Library · Renaissance Collection · Bilingual Edition
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I
Proem and Books I–IV · Latin with an independent English translation
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English Page · Branch 100 of 174
Book II · Chapter 12 · §§ 1–4
Latin
p. 202Voluntas Dei necessaria simul et libera est et agit libere.
Satis probatum arbitror Deum non necessitate naturae aut intelligentiae, sed voluntatis imperio singula procreare. Quemadmodum vero voluntas eius necessaria simul et libera sit, in praesentia demonstrandum esse censeo.
Ratio prima. Caveat quisque diligentissime ne in tam temerariam impietatem fortuito incidat ut aliquando suspicetur Deum ita esse operarique ut forte contigerit. Si nulli umquam rei forte contingit esse operarique id quod naturaliter est operaturque, puta igni non contingit forte, sed oportet quod calidus sit et calefaciat, summo autem enti naturale est ut sit et summo actui naturale est ut agat, sequitur Deum, qui summum ens et plus quam ens et summus actus exsistit, nullo modo secundum contingentiam esse vel agere. Si ubi plus est rationis ibi sortis est minus, in Deo, qui summa ratio est vel fons rationis, nihil potest cogitari fortuitum. Si fortuna non efficit rationem, cum ei contraria sit, immo sit privatio rationis sive defectus, quonam pacto producit aut Deum aut divinam aliquam actionem qualibet ratione superiorem?
Si Deus est illa ipsa regula ita rerum omnium ordinatrix ut ab eis quae proxime sequuntur eam omnem contingentiam auferat, quomodo eum forte quadam obtigit sic esse vel operari? Quamobrem Deus non ut obtigit ita exsistit et agit, alioquin nullus usquam ordo reperiretur umquam, sed ut decuit, immo ut decet. Decet autem quia decorum. Ipse vero decor est ipse Deus, a quo et per quem omnia decentia fiunt. Immo vero est agitque ut necesse est. Necesse est per ipsam necessitatem. Necessitas autem ipse est Deus, per quem et cetera necessaria sunt, quaecumque sunt necessaria. Igitur ita est Deus ut est. Ita agit ut agit. Et quoniam necessitati nulla praeest necessitas, ideo ibi est summa libertas.
Libertas est appetibilis tamquam bonum. In summa vero bonitate est quicquid usquam desiderari potest tamquam bonum. Liber est quicumque vivit ut vult. Vivit ut vult prae ceteris ipsa bonitas, cuius vitam vult voluntas omnis, praeter quam nihil aliqua vult voluntas.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I: Book II
p. 203God's will is at once necessary and free, and acts freely.
I believe it has been sufficiently proved that God creates each thing, not under a necessity of nature or intelligence, but by the command of his will. I now propose to demonstrate how his will is at once necessary and free.
First argument. Everyone must take the greatest care not to fall by chance into an impiety so rash as to suspect that God's being and activity are themselves accidents of chance. No thing happens by chance to be and act as its nature makes it be and act. Fire, for example, is not hot and heating by chance; it must be so. It follows that God—who is supreme being, more than being, and supreme actuality—can in no way be or act contingently. Where there is more reason, there is less chance; therefore in God, who is supreme reason or the source of reason, nothing fortuitous can be conceived. Fortune does not produce reason, for it is contrary to reason—indeed, it is a lack or failure of reason. How then could it produce either God or any divine action, which stands above every rational principle?
If God is the very rule that orders all things and removes every contingency from the things that follow him most nearly, how could it have befallen him by chance to be or act as he does? God therefore does not exist and act as chance happened to determine—for then no order would ever be found anywhere—but as was fitting, indeed as is fitting. A thing is fitting because it is beautiful, and Beauty itself is God himself, from whom and through whom all fitting things arise. Indeed, God is and acts as he necessarily must. He does so through Necessity itself, and Necessity is God himself, through whom all other necessary things are necessary. Thus God is as he is and acts as he acts. Since no necessity stands above Necessity, there is supreme freedom in God.
Freedom is desirable as a good, and supreme goodness contains whatever can anywhere be desired as good. Whoever lives as he wills is free. Goodness itself lives as it wills more fully than anything else: every will desires its life, and no will desires anything apart from it.
Socrates
Reading Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I · Book II · II.12.1–II.12.4
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Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology places the immortality of the soul at the center of an extended philosophical ascent through body, soul, angel, and God. This exact page-aligned Renaissance edition presents the authorial Proem and Books I–IV in a newly established Latin reading text with an independent English translation prepared by Diotimos Editions.
Historical Text and Translation
The Latin reading text is based on the Florence editio princeps printed by Antonio Miscomini on 7 November 1482 and principally collated against the Paris 1559 printing, with a 1641 Opera printing used only as a late control and OCR aid. Abbreviations are expanded, spelling and punctuation are conservatively normalized, and substantive departures among the witnesses are documented in the edition’s apparatus.
About Diotimos Editions
Diotimos Editions prepared this independently worded English translation in house. It aims for a dignified but readable modern register while preserving Ficino’s argumentative sequence, metaphors, technical distinctions, repetitions, conditions, purpose clauses, and direct appeals; long periods are divided only where clarity requires it.
Rights
Ficino’s Latin source work is in the public domain. The 2026 English translation and Diotimos editorial matter are original to this edition and remain © 2026 Diotimos.