The Irreducibility of the Two Meanings of “Can” in Islamic Philosophy and Theology

There are two meanings of "Can" in the tradition of Islamic thought. Philosophers have adopted their definition regarding the notion of necessity and Theologians (Mutakallimin) have chosen theirs based on the contingency. In the former view, the agent is capable if he is able to choose to perform actions (he would have done otherwise if he had willed to) and not prevented by external barriers from fulfilling his wishes. On the other hand, in the latter, capability is contingent; Meaning the agent must have the possibility to do otherwise. Razi assumed that these two definitions can be referred to each other. Nasir al-Din al-Tusi believes that there is a significant discrepancy between two kinds of agencies: God and Human. In the case of human agency, these are interchangeable, but in the case of God, they are not. In this article, I elaborate on these claims. Then, I illustrate these definitions are not interchangeable, even in the case of human agency because the only reason was used to support this claim, i.e. contributory causation, has many flaws.