and as He says earlier:
“O you who believe, if an evildoer brings you news, verify it, lest you harm people unwittingly and then regret what you have done. * And know that among you is the Messenger of Allah. If he were to obey you in many matters, you would surely suffer hardship. But Allah has endeared faith to you and made it pleasing in your hearts.”
This addresses the believers, not all people.
Moreover, if the servant is capable of both obedience and disobedience, then unless a cause arises that necessitates the occurrence of one rather than the other, one alternative would necessarily prevail without a factor that favors it.
If that cause comes from the servant, the same argument applies to it as applies to the act itself. Thus, the newly arising cause that necessitates one alternative’s prevailing must come from someone other than the servant. The cause through which obedience occurs is a blessing from Allah that He has bestowed particularly upon His believing servant.
The Qadariyyah among the Mu‘tazilah and others then based upon this their assertion that the Lord did not speak or act, and then created speech and the products of His action without any cause that required one alternative to prevail.
As for those who affirm divine decree, such as the Jahmiyyah and others like them, they disagreed with them concerning the servant’s action. They said that neither of the two alternatives within his power can prevail over the other without a factor that favors it, yet they agreed with them concerning Allah’s action.
This is why the statements of al-Rāzī and others like him contradict one another on this fundamental principle. When debating the Qadariyyah, they argue that an agent endowed with power cannot favor one alternative within his power without a factor that favors it. Yet when they seek to establish the temporal origination of the world and refute the eternalists, they base their argument on the claim that an agent endowed with power favors one of two alternatives within his power over the other without a factor that favors it.
They said that favoring one of the two alternatives open to a contingent thing over the other without a factor that favors it is possible for an agent endowed with power and choice, but not for a necessitating cause. They claimed a distinction in this regard between that which necessitates by its very essence and an agent who acts by choice.