Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I

5And because truth itself and goodness lack nothing true or good, all such degrees are present in it, however many can be understood as true and desired as good. Such degrees are innumerable. Every agent is more powerful in proportion as the passive potency which it brings into act is farther removed from act; for greater power is needed to heat water than to heat air. But that which does not exist at all is infinitely distant from act, nor does it possess any potency for receiving the act that would bring it into being, a matter we shall discuss more fully in what follows.

6Whether, then, God creates something anew out of nothing, or continually brings forth and preserves the primary matter of bodies and the essence of minds and souls from no prior subject, keeping them always dependent upon the first act, that is, the divine act, he undoubtedly possesses an immeasurable power of acting.

7What more is needed? The motion and order of this vast and manifold fabric, so uniform through so many ages, show that the power in its governor is indefatigable and therefore infinite. For finite power grows weary and falters over infinite time—indeed, even over a long time, though finite. From the infinite power of God, then, all intellects receive the ability to understand always and firmly; souls, to range without end; matter, to possess a boundless potency of receiving; and motion and time, to flow without limit.

8The generation of things likewise receives from it the power, as the natural philosophers hold, to be continued in an alternating and endless succession. For they think that infinite action and motion take their origin from infinite power. They also hold that whatever things are said to be in some way infinite, whether in potency or in any other fashion, are such and are judged such through the supreme infinity that exists in act. Hence the divine nature is surnamed by Orpheus ἀτελὴς τελευτή, that is, ‘an infinite end.’