Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II

3The being that follows immediately after nothing is called absolute being. For what follows nothing directly is being simply; only after being simply come being this or that and being of one kind or another—for example, being a human or a horse, being white or black. Nothing can become this, that, or such-and-such unless there is first something that can become this, that, or such-and-such. Determinate being, therefore, does not follow on the heels of nothing; it follows being itself, simple and absolute.

4Since it belongs properly to God to bestow upon all things being itself, common and absolute, and since that being comes after nothing but before every mode of being, it belongs to God alone to bring something from nothing into being. What is given first to all—being itself—must come from the first cause; second or third gifts come from subsequent causes. Whatever participates in a nature plainly cannot produce that nature in its absolute form. What possesses a character by participation necessarily follows what possesses it absolutely and, indeed, owes to that absolute source whatever it is. If the participant were to generate the absolute nature, what comes later would generate something prior to itself and even generate its own cause, since in generating that cause it would also generate itself.