Divine Will and Accidental Determinations: The Question of Accidental Attributes in the Philosophical Theology of Kalām

This article develops a metaphysical argument for the necessary freedom from accidents of the divine will and examines its implications for the question of divine unity. Operating within the framework of Islamic Analytical Theology, the argument proceeds from the classical theistic conception of God as a perfect, simple, immutable, and necessary being. The central thesis is that the divine will, as an eternal essential attribute, cannot bear accidental determinations, since any such determination would imply changeability, relationality, or dependence, properties that are incompatible with divine perfection. Four convergent arguments establish this incompatibility: from changeability, relationality, dependence, and contingency. As an application, it is shown that the assumption of two numerically distinct divine wills necessarily introduces an accidental relational determination into each (namely, the modal possibility of mutual resistance), thereby contradicting the concept of the divine. The argument thus operates at the modal level. The incompatibility does not arise from any scenario of actual volitional conflict. It follows rather from the metaphysical structure of any plurality of divine wills as such. Situating itself within the Ashʿarite-Māturīdite tradition while engaging debates on divine simplicity in contemporary analytic philosophy of religion, the article concludes that the unity of God is defensible not merely as a factual assertion, but rather as a metaphysically necessary truth.