He said(1): “It is thus evident that all agree that an eternal entity may be ascribed to an eternal necessitating cause, but cannot be ascribed to an agent who acts by choice.”

In reply, it may be said:

Rather, the philosophers have two well-known positions concerning whether He acts by His will. Abū al-Barakāt and others maintain that He is an agent who acts by His will, while also affirming the eternity of the world. It is therefore clear that what he stated concerning the theologians is false, and what he stated concerning the philosophers is likewise false.

The philosophers hold two positions, whereas the theologians unanimously reject what he has attributed to them or sought to impose upon them as a necessary consequence of their position. Indeed, they and the great majority of rational people maintain that it is known by necessity that every effect has come into being; whether it is produced through will or through nature is then a separate issue(2).

The knowledge that an effect has come into being is not based on the agent’s possessing will. For, in their view, an act can originate only from an agent possessed of power and will. Yet each of these is a proposition in its own right, and each serves as evidence for the temporal origination of everything other than Allah. The two propositions also necessarily entail one another.

A full treatment of these matters belongs elsewhere. The point here, however, is that those among Ahl al-Sunnah, the Shia, and others who reject the foundational doctrines of the Jahmiyyah and the Muʿtazilah use these