Either humans aren't free (making accountability unjust), or Allah's control is incomplete (challenging His omnipotence)
Islam teaches:
1. Allah decrees all things—every action, every choice, every outcome.
2. Humans are held morally accountable for the actions Allah decreed for them.
Those two cannot simultaneously be true without collapsing into contradiction.
Thus the dilemma:
Either humans are not truly free (making accountability unjust),
OR
Allah is not in exhaustive control (contradicting the Quran). Either horn falsifies Islam.
P1. Moral accountability requires genuine freedom to choose otherwise.
P2. The Quran teaches that Allah predestines every human decision, movement, belief, disbelief, and action.
P3. If everything is predestined, humans cannot have genuine freedom.
P4. If humans do not have genuine freedom, moral accountability is unjust.
P5. Islam teaches that Allah holds humans morally accountable and will punish or reward them.
C. Therefore Islam affirms two mutually exclusive propositions: total predestination and morally responsible freedom—making the system internally contradictory and therefore false.
P1. Islam asserts that Allah is absolutely sovereign and meticulously determines all events (Surah 10:100;, 16:93; 76:30; 81:29; 37:96).
P2. If Allah determines all events, He determines all human actions.
P3. If Allah determines all human actions, humans cannot possess libertarian or meaningful free will.
C. Therefore Islam eliminates real free will.
P4. Islam also teaches that humans are morally responsible and will be judged for their choices (Surah 18:29;, 74:37; 91:7–10).
P5. Moral responsibility logically requires freedom that is not predetermined by another agent.
C. Therefore Islam presupposes real free will.
P6. A worldview that simultaneously asserts (1) total determinism of all choices and (2) meaningful moral responsibility contains an unresolved contradiction.
** C.** Therefore Islam is internally inconsistent and false.
Either:
1. Allah determines all actions, making free will an illusion and judgment unjust,
or
2. Allah does not determine all actions, meaning His control is limited and the Quran is wrong.
Either horn contradicts Islamic theology, demonstrating the system’s incoherence.
1. “It’s both.” (The Ash‘arite compatibilist attempt)
Rebuttal:
If you could not have done otherwise, you were not free, and cannot be morally judged.
2. “Allah creates your actions but you ‘acquire’ them.”
This is the kasb doctrine.
Rebuttal:
“Acquisition” changes nothing—Allah still decrees:
- your will
- your motives
- your choice
- your action
- your outcome
If Allah creates the act, the intention, and the will, accountability is incoherent.
3. “Mystery.”
Rebuttal: