Causa sui

 ( Latin Philosophical Phrases ) 

Causa sui (; ) is a Latin term that denotes something that is generated within itself. Used in relation to the purpose that objects can assign to themselves, the concept was central to the works of Baruch Spinoza, Sigmund Freud, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Ernest Becker.

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In social science In Freud and Becker's case, the concept was often used as an immortality vessel, whereby something could create meaning, or continue to create meaning, beyond its own life.

Norman O. Brown, in his acclaimed Life Against Death, argues Freud's Oedipal complex is essentially the causa sui ("father-of-oneself") project, where, after the traumatic recognition that the subject is separate from the mother — that they are 'other' — they seek for reunification with the mother.

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In theism In traditional Western theism, even though God cannot be created by any other force or being, he cannot be defined as causa sui because such would imply the Spinozism Pantheism idea of 'becoming', which contrasts with the belief of Scholasticism theology that God is incapable of changing.

The Catholic concept of...God as absolutely independent and self-existent by nature, and, consequently, all-perfect without any possibility of change from all eternity, is altogether opposed to the pantheistic concept of absolute or pure being that evolves, determines, and realizes itself through all time.

Changing implies development, and since God is to be considered the Absolute Perfection, there is no further need to change: he is the so-called actus purus, or aseity.

John Panteleimon Manoussakis (2025). 9780823225323, Fordham University Press. . ISBN 9780823225323

P. 413..

Thomas Joseph White (2025). 9780802865335, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. . ISBN 9780802865335

P. 384. .

Dolf te Velde (2025). 9789059723665, Eburon Uitgeverij B.V. . ISBN 9789059723665

P. 302. . Instead, the recent process theology inserts this concept among the attributes of God in Christianity.

On the other hand, in the Japji Sahib, Baba Nanak (the founder of Sikhism) defined God as self-existent.

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See also

• Causality
• Agent causation
• Existentialism
• For-itself
• Immutability (theology)
• Primum movens
• Process theology
• Aseity

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