Causal Necessity or Philosophical Determinism; Analytic Study of Pros and Cons of the Theory of Causal Necessity

The relation of free will and causal necessity is one of the controversial problems in philosophy which from the start gave rise to much debate among Islamic thinkers. Well-known theologians believe that cause can never necessitate its effect at least in the case of free agent's acts of will on the ground that the free will of God and that of human being is incompatible with causal necessity. Most of Muslim philosophers however, hold such necessity to be self-evident according to which the existence of effect is inevitably necessitated by presence of complete cause. This article is an attempt to reformulating the arguments of proponents of causal necessity along with the detailed view of some Shiite contemporary scholars in philosophy and principles of fiqh.