This is the import of the position held by those who uphold affirmation, as stated by such figures as Qādī Abū Bakr and Qādī Abū Ya'lā, among others:

“There is no disagreement between us and the Mu'tazilites that what renders an agent’s agency possible is his being capable. We have found that whenever something renders a given state possible, it is impossible for that state and the corresponding judgment to obtain in the absence of what renders it possible.

(* Do you not see that, once it was established that being alive is what makes it possible for someone to be capable and knowing, it became impossible for him to be knowing and capable in [the absence] (1) of his being alive? Likewise, since *) (2) what makes it possible for a colored thing to be colored (3) and moving is its being a substance, it is impossible for it to be colored and moving (4) without being a substance.

Likewise, it is impossible for someone to be an agent in a state in which he is not capable.”

They said, “This is one of the proofs relied upon.” This proof entails that capacity to act must exist, but it does not rule out its existence before the act (5), because an enabling condition may exist before the thing conditioned upon it comes into existence (6), and may exist without that thing—just as life may exist without knowledge, and a substance without motion.

This is also among the arguments advanced against the philosophers concerning the question (7) of the temporal origination of the universe. When they say, “The eternal cause brings about the second revolution provided that the first has ended,” they are told: “At the moment the originated thing comes into being, there must be a complete cause, and the agent must be capable (8)