Indeed, what people know from their own experience is that a person’s willing of one of two things is not the same as his willing of the other, whether the two are alike or different—let alone that there could be a single will whose relation to two identical objects is equal and yet that very will should select one of them without any determinant.

If it were admissible to say that such a will arises within the agent and prefers one of its two identical objects without a determinant, it would follow that the human self could likewise prefer this will over that will without a determinant.

In that case, the coming-to-be of the will would not require any cause outside the person himself; rather, his very self could generate this will instead of that one for no reason whatsoever.

This is the doctrine of the Qadariyya, who claim that a human being produces his own will without a prior will, insist that will admits of no causal explanation, and make the same assertion about the Pre-Eternal, saying that He produces the will without a prior will.

Even if they pursue their view consistently, it is defective on several counts:

1. They posit events without a complete producer, effects without a complete cause, and possibilities without a complete determinant.

2. They prefer one of two identical alternatives over the other without a determinant—a notion that is not only self-evidently false but also bars them from the path of affirming the Creator.

3. They assign the occurrence of an event to one of two identical moments in time without a determinant, which is likewise impossible.