and had said elsewhere, “He is the foremost figure of the Muʿtazila”(1), while here(2) he stated that Abū al-Husayn held that capacity and will necessitate the existence of the act within one’s power. How, then, could their position have been invalidated altogether?

To explain this, they say: “Choice means that the two alternatives stand in an equal relation to capacity considered by itself, while one of them necessarily occurs according to the will. Whenever the complete determining factor(3)—namely, the will—is present, the act must occur; when it is absent, the act is impossible. This does not conflict with the two alternatives being equally related to capacity considered by itself. Thus, the consequence he cited does not conclusively invalidate their position.”’

I say: The position that al-Rāzī categorically declared false is the position(4) for which they are well known: that the act does not depend upon a motive. Rather, an agent with power gives precedence to one of the two acts within his power(5) over the other without a determining factor, whereupon the motive—such as the will—brings the act about for him solely by virtue of his being capable, even though his capacity stands in an equal relation to that act’s existence and nonexistence.

The motive is sometimes interpreted as knowledge, belief, or supposition(6); sometimes as will; sometimes as all of these together; and sometimes as a feature contained in the intended object that calls for willing it.

Al-Rāzī maintains that Abū al-Husayn is inconsistent, for, when enumerating the various positions, al-Rāzī mentioned