From your position, how does something like the standard model stack up with what could be the absolute cosmic fundamentals?
I don't know enough physics to make a real comparison. but - tho they're both concerned with "what is?", one is metaphysics, the other is physics.
Spinoza isn't really creating a model of how reality works in that nuts + bolts sense
he's not directly speaking about actual natural forces as we understand them now, that's my extrapolation
tho I don't think he would have been surprised by them. it's very of his time. Newton published his theory of gravity 10 years after Spinoza died.
potentiality of expression of matter is another extrapolation, or more like a rephrasing of
Deus sive Natura
which I understand as God is everything which is or can be, or going the other way, everything which can be is in God
the difference between infinite potentiality and actuality of expression of matter is the difference between being an infinite and a finite being
tbh it seems to me that if you remove it as the causal factor you don't actually need "God" by Spinoza's definition of God
and causation is the weakest part of his definition - it's a turtles all the way down handwave like all cosmology ultimately is
again, this is my limited understanding of a famously difficult topic