They go even further, declaring that whatever is generated from a human action is itself that person’s own act, while denying any causal efficacy to the other factors that took part in producing it. The deeds of human beings—and indeed of all animals—fall into two categories: direct and derivative. A direct act is one that occurs within the agent’s sphere of power, such as standing, sitting, eating, or drinking. A derivative act is one that issues beyond that sphere, like an arrow’s flight after it leaves the bow, a knife’s severing of a neck, the pain that follows a blow, and the like.

The Muʿtazilites hold that these derivative outcomes are the servant’s acts exactly like the direct ones. By contrast, those who push their opposition to the Muʿtazilites to the opposite extreme—the Ashʿarites and others—assert that such occurrences are the act of God Most High, and that the servant has no act in them whatsoever. Although the Ashʿarites do not attribute any real influence to the servant’s power in bringing about the decreed event, they nonetheless draw a distinction: what falls within the locus of that power they deem within the servant’s capability, whereas what lies outside it they deem beyond his capability. Most of their challengers respond that this kind of discourse is simply unintelligible.