Free Will in Theology - in Islamic Thought

In Islamic Thought

Disputes about free will in Islam began with the Mu'tazili vs Hanbali disputes, with the Mu'tazili arguing that humans had "qadar," the capacity to do right or wrong, and thus deserved the reward or punishment they received, whereas Hanbali insisted on God's "jabr," or total power and initiative in managing all events. Schools that developed around earlier thinkers such as Abu Hanifa and al-Ash'ari searched for ways to explain how both human qadar, and divine jabr could be asserted at the same time. Ash'ari develops a "dual agency" or "acquisition" account of free will in which every human action has two distinct agents. God creates the possibility of a human action with his divine jabr, but then the human follows through and "acquires" the act, making it theirs and taking responsibility for it using their human qadar.