Aquinas and Immanent and Transitive Actions
Aquinas appeals to Aristotle, who differentiates between two types of actions: immanent actions, which take place in the agent (for example, to love, to feel, to know), and transitive actions, which are exterior to the agent (for example, to eat, to build, to trade). Thomas, by way of analogy, applies these distinctions to God.
Kevin Giles, The Eternal Generation of the Son: Maintaining Orthodoxy in Trinitarian Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 0