The Human Agency according to the Theological School of Ḥillah

Although, following the Ahl al-Bayt (P.B.U.T.), the Imamiyya have believed in the real agency of the human and the negation of predestination, the Imamiyya theologians have presented different readings and explanations of the human agency in different historical periods. In the school of Ḥillah, where the theological method and basic concepts of theologians approached philosophy, the theologians’ explanation of agency had undergone a change. This study attempts to show that although the theologians of Ḥillah emphasized the role of man in the emergence of actions by proving the power to act and to avoid before performing the action, and the will that determines the power, they distanced themselves from their predecessors by accepting the model of philosophical causality. In the explanation of Ḥillah theologians, on the one hand, the power and will of man in a longitudinal system are the effects of the will and power of the Almighty, and on the other hand, they are considered as the complete cause of the act which necessarily implies the essential issuance of the action.