The late founder of the Islamic Republic has undertaken very serious and useful discussions in this regard as following:
When the Messenger of God was appointed to shoulder the mission of messengership [risālah], a group of the who considered the acceptance of the faith as taking responsibility for, and exercising control over their own carnal desires, claimed:
“If God did not want it, we and our forefathers would not have become polytheists and since we have become so, it implies that God has approved it and it is God’s will.”
As a result, they became fatalists, and would say that they did not have the right to select and were, perforce, polytheists.
In reality, they were juxtaposing the power and will of God vis-à-vis their own power. They would claim that if they were truly free, it implied that God was powerless, and since God had power over everything, it meant that their unbelief and denial of the faith also stemmed from the will of God in the midst of which they had no option.
Anticipating this type of argument and reasoning, God told His messenger: “They who are idolaters will say: Had Allah willed, we had not ascribed (unto Him) partners neither had our fathers.”