 As mentioned earlier (in  §1.2),  Ashʿarite theologians tend to hold that God alone has causal power. They primarily support this view by appeal to the doctrine of divine omnipotence. Still, discussion of the nature of agency also plays a role in some of their arguments. For example, in The Incoherence of the Philosophers, al-Ghazālī maintains that “agent” (al-fāʿil)