Hence, the simultaneous appearance of two contingent events in the very same locus and at the very same moment does not of itself establish any causal relation between them; one might even say that calling “acquisition” power and calling power “acquisition” is no more—or less—reasonable than the reverse, if all that is meant is their mere concurrence in time and place.

For this reason the People of the Sunnah, together with all other schools that affirm the realities of things, declare that the servant is truly the doer of his own act. The majority of the Ashʿarīs and those who side with them, however, maintain that he is only a doer by metaphor, not in reality. They further contend that the servant’s act is, in truth, an act of God and not of the servant, for—along with the rest of Ahl al-Sunnah who affirm the Divine Decree—they hold that God, exalted be He, is the Creator of human actions, and that God’s act is identical with what He brings into existence, just as “creation” is, in their view, identical with “the created thing.”

A group from among the followers of Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, and Aḥmad concurred with them on this point; it was the first of the two positions reported from the judge Abū Yaʿlā, though he later retracted it and aligned himself with the majority of Mālikīs, Shāfiʿīs, and Ḥanbalīs, who hold that creation is other than the created thing. This is likewise the doctrine of the Ḥanafīs, the ḥadīth scholars, most Sufis, and the greater part of the theologians.

Now, because the Ashʿarīs say that God’s act is the very thing acted upon and that creation is nothing but the created entity, and because they also say that the servant’s act is created by God, they are forced to concede that the servant’s act is God’s act. Yet if it is God’s act, it cannot at the same time be the servant’s, for one and the same act cannot belong to two distinct agents.

This is why they have been vehemently censured by the masses—both those who affirm the Divine Decree and those who deny it. The Qadarites among the Muʿtazilah, the Shīʿah, and others have sought to exploit this misstep in order to undermine the Sunnī position on predestination and to argue that God does not create human actions.

For the majority of the Muʿtazilah also say that creation is identical with the created thing; consequently, if the servant truly performs his own act, it would be impossible for that act to be a creation of God, for the created thing