Causa sui (pronounced[ˈkau̯.saˈsʊ.iː];transl. cause of itself, self-caused) is aLatin 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 ofBaruch Spinoza,Sigmund Freud,Jean-Paul Sartre, andErnest Becker.
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 acclaimedLife Against Death, argues Freud'sOedipal complex is essentially thecausa 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.[1]
In traditional Western theism, even though God cannot be created by any other force or being, he cannot be defined ascausa sui because such would imply theSpinozianpantheistic idea of 'becoming', which contrasts with the belief ofscholastic theology that God is incapable of changing.[2]
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.[2]
Changing implies development, and since God is to be considered the Absolute Perfection, there is no further need to change: he is the so-calledactus purus, oraseity.[3][4][5] Instead, the recentprocess theology inserts this concept among theattributes of God in Christianity.
On the other hand, in theJapji Sahib,Guru Nanak (the founder ofSikhism) defined God as self-existent.[6]
According to basic psychoanalytic theory, the castration complex establishes the peculiar capacity of human bodies to devise nonbodily activities (sublimations) and the peculiar capacity of the human self for self-denial (the super-ego). We can begin, I think, to make sense of these paradoxes if we think of the Oedipal project as thecausa sui (father-of-oneself) project, and therefore in essence a revolt against death generally, and specifically against the biological principle separating mother and child. The castration complex is the consequence of the collision between this project and the perception of the fact of sexual differentiation separating mother and son.
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