Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I

23Since the entire fabric of the world was established in order to reflect divine goodness, and the world's parts were set in place for the sake of that fabric, we must not demand absolute and supreme perfection in the whole work. We should require only so much perfection as suffices, according to the work's powers, to indicate the more sublime perfection of its Author. Nor should every possible perfection of a part be demanded in each part of the world, but only the perfection that harmonizes with the other parts and benefits the whole. Thus, although some condition of a particular worldly part may at times seem blameworthy when considered by itself, if we compare it with the state of the whole, we shall discover that the world could not be well ordered in any other way.

24The maker of the universe does not subordinate the whole to any of its parts, but rather the parts to the whole. Thus things that in some part may appear evil or misshapen rightly issue at last in the beauty and good of the whole. For this reason God is called by Orpheus ‘everlasting life and immortal providence.’ Mercury says that this providence is the nurse of the human race. In the fourth book of the Laws, Plato likewise says that God contains the beginnings, middles, and ends of all things; encompasses all things and rightly orders each one; shows favor to the gentle and religious; and punishes the proud and impious. Plato does not think that divine providence abolishes the freedom of our judgment; on the contrary, he thinks it preserves that freedom. He makes this clear in the tenth book of the Republic, in the Statesman, and in the Critias, for God brings things about not so much by knowing as by willing.