لا كما زعمت المعتزلة أن العبد خالق لأفعاله
This differs from the Muʿtazilī contention that the servant creates his own acts.
Muʿtazilī arguments seek to safeguard divine justice and human responsibility by attributing the origination of voluntary actions to human agents. They raise a difficulty: if disbelief and sin are created by God, how can punishment and blame be just? Sunni theologians reject the supposed consequence because creation and voluntary performance need not be the same relation.
The dispute is not merely whether a human being may be called an agent. It concerns whether the servant's power independently originates an act or whether God creates the act as the servant voluntarily acquires and performs it.