Does a man who dies a believer enter Paradise, or is he under the will of Allah, such that He may either admit him to Paradise or punish him with the Fire?

The Shaykh: Does a man who dies a believer enter Paradise, or if Allah wills, He admits him to Paradise, and if He wills, He admits him to the Fire?
This question contains a kind of strangeness, but it seems to me that the questioner either read something of the science of theology (kalam), or he heard from some people something of this science.
In the science of theology, there is a phrase attributed to the Asha'irah. They say it, thinking they are praising their Lord with what they say, when they say: "It is for Allah to punish the obedient and reward the disobedient!" This phrase is mentioned in "al-Jawharah" and in other commentaries and other texts. There are details of this phrase that greatly magnify the problem; they say: It is for Allah (Mighty and Majestic) to admit Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) into the Fire and place him in its lowest depth, and the opposite of that. But I want to say: Do not rush to be unjust to people; for what they say is enough injustice for them, so we do not want you to understand anything more than what they say. They said, on the opposite of that: It is for Allah (Mighty and Majestic) to admit Iblis the accursed into the Gardens of Bliss and make his station the highest station. Why? They said: "It is for Allah to punish the obedient and reward the disobedient." Their evidence for that is like His saying (Mighty and Majestic): , and His saying: . But such absolute texts are not permissible to rely upon without combining them with other texts. For example, this is Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) who says: , He says: . So this verse and others like it, many verses and even more hadiths, clarify that when Allah (Mighty and Majestic) says: , He is not being unjust or turning away from wisdom and justice, but rather with His wisdom (Blessed and Exalted is He) and His justice which has no like.
Sufficient for you in this from the explicit, authentic hadiths is His saying (peace and blessings be upon him): , a Qudsi hadith, . This is an explicit text with two benefits; one is negative and the other is positive. The negative is that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) does not wrong. As for the positive, it is that Allah is capable of wrongdoing; because He said: . So He is capable of wronging people, but Allah (Mighty and Majestic) does not wrong people in the least, but people themselves wrong themselves. This is from those many texts; when those scholars of theology found such explicit, decisive texts that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) treats His servants with the totality of the highest attributes He is described with, not only with the attribute that He is the Doer of what He wills as they understand it—"Doer of what He wills" meaning even if it is by wrongdoing, because He wrongs; no, because Allah (Mighty and Majestic) is Wise and All-Knowing, placing every thing in its appropriate place; so no one can ask Him why He placed this here and this here? Why did He admit Muhammad to Paradise and give him the high rank, and cast Iblis into the lowest of the lowest of the Fire? No one asks this question; because Allah (Mighty and Majestic) is Wise and All-Knowing, placing every thing in its appropriate place.
When the scholars of theology found such decisive texts that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) does not punish the obedient—far be it from Him! How is it that He says in a rhetorical question of denial: ; they said: Only to defend a word said by some of their predecessors, and every person errs. So the truth is that they should leave that word and not try to prove it, even by way of reason; for they returned and said: By the Shari'ah, no, it is not said: It is for Allah (Mighty and Majestic) to punish the obedient and reward the disobedient. They said: Rather, this is said by reason. And this is a problem. They were in a problem and fell into another problem; for they are now depicting to people that Islam is one thing and reason is another, so reason permits something and Islam forbids it. Is this Islam? Or does Islam walk with sound reason exactly like twins?
Therefore we say: Neither by reason nor by the Shari'ah is it permissible for a Muslim to say or describe his Lord by saying: "It is for Him to punish the obedient and reward the disobedient." How are we? Have we not understood? Have we not realized that our Lord is Wise, All-Knowing, and Just? This is how we understood Him. So how do we be stubborn and say: It is for Him by reason to punish the obedient?! On this basis, it is not permissible except to be certain that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) has promised the believers Paradise, even the sinners, even the doers of major sins; one day they will enter Paradise certainly , and it is not permissible to doubt this reality at all.
And corresponding to this is another reality: that the disbelievers; the disbelievers are not with us, the disbelievers are with Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He), and they are those to whom the Islamic Shari'ah reached with its correct fundamentals, not distorted or altered, and then they disbelieved in it and denied it and their souls were certain of it. So these will enter Hellfire, abiding therein forever without end. And there is a rank between the two ranks; the sinners among the Muslims, these, either our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) includes many of them in His forgiveness, so He admits them to Paradise without punishment, or He punishes them because of their sins, then their faith saves them from abiding in the Fire, even if this faith is like a speck, this small dust; however little this faith is, if it is correct faith conforming to the Islamic Shari'ah, Book and Sunnah, its owner does not abide in the Fire. Only the disbelievers abide in the Fire. This is what a Muslim must believe. The believer who died upon correct faith and whose good deeds were more than his bad deeds is in Paradise "transit" without punishment. And whoever committed some of the sins, if Allah (Mighty and Majestic) does not include him in His forgiveness, he will be punished in the Fire to the extent he deserves, then he will come out of it to Paradise. As for the disbelievers, they abide in it forever, as is the text of the Qur'an and the text of the Sunnah mass-transmitted from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him).