The Transcendent and Causal Dimensions of Aquinas’s Action Theory: Insights from Metaphysics

Aquinas’s analyses of the action process can be traced to a twofold structure: an end as a final cause determines a human action, while the action derives causally from the rational will. By comparing the transcendent relationship between God and His creatures with the special causal and noncausal relationships between human beings and his actions, this paper aims to provide a new perspective for understanding this structure. According to Aquinas, God is the ultimate end and the first agent for all creatures in a state of absolute transcendence. In contrast, human action partially participates in the divine mode of action so that a universal good as an end of action is still transcendentally related to individual actions while the rational will, as a second agent, causally and nontranscendentally contributes to the execution of action. Thus, Aquinas’s action theory is both explanatory and causal.