The causa finalis (final cause) is, alongside the causa efficiens (efficient cause), the causa materialis (material cause), and the causa formalis (formal cause), one of the four causes distinguished by Aristotle. It denotes the for-the-sake-of-which of an occurrence — the purpose, the end for whose sake something happens or is.
For personal ontology the causa finalis is of fundamental importance: personhood is not accidental but purposive. The person strives of itself toward truth, the good, and love — not because external forces push it there (causa efficiens), but because these ends are laid down in its nature. The agere sequitur esse — action follows being — presupposes the final cause: the being of the person is laid out toward determinate operations.
The four causes
| Cause | Question | Example (human being) |
|---|---|---|
| Causa materialis | Out of what? | body, matter |
| Causa formalis | What makes it what it is? | rational soul as essential form |
| Causa efficiens | Through what? | begetting, conception |
| Causa finalis | For what? | self-completion in truth and love |
The elimination of the final cause in modernity
Modern natural science has methodically excluded the final cause: it explains natural processes solely through efficient causes (causa efficiens). Francis Bacon and Descartes declared the search for final causes barren. This methodical restriction became, in scientism, an ontological thesis: there are no final causes — everything is blind causality.
Max Planck contradicted this: the principle of least action in physics gives “the impression as though nature were governed by a rational, purposive will.” The final cause is not eliminable but shows itself even in physics.
Significance for the concept of person
Without a final cause, personhood is not conceivable: self-transcendence — the going-beyond-oneself toward truth and love — is essentially final, not efficient. The person is not pushed toward truth by external forces but strives toward it out of itself. Whoever denies the causa finalis reduces the person to a mechanism — a form of positivism and of the oblivion of the person.
Causa efficiens
The causa efficiens (efficient cause) denotes that through which something is brought about — the producing cause. For personal ontology the efficient cause of begetting is conception: the new human being is called into existence through the union of egg and sperm cell. Yet the efficient cause alone does not explain the what and the for-what of the new being — for this, the formal and the final cause are required.
Thomas Aquinas teaches that all four causes work together and that none alone explains a being sufficiently. The reduction to the efficient cause alone — as in the mechanistic worldview — is an impoverishment of the concept of being.
Chapter assignment: Chapter 4: Personhood (German), Chapter 2: Method (German)
Ontological classification: Part of the Aristotelian-Thomistic doctrine of causes. Presupposes: metaphysics.
Sources: Bexten 2017, pp. 113—141 (substance ontology), pp. 155—170 (act and potency).
Further sources:
- Aristotle: Physics, Book II, ch. 3. In: The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes, transl. R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.
- Aristotle: Metaphysics, Book V (Δ), ch. 2. Transl. W. D. Ross. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.
- Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae, I, q. 44 (On the procession of creatures from God). Transl. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. New York: Benziger Bros., 1947.
- Planck, Max (1937): “Religion and Natural Science.” In: Planck, Max: Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers, transl. Frank Gaynor. New York: Philosophical Library, 1949.