Recently, certain Muslim apologists and YouTubers have been excited that former kickboxer and controversial internet personality Andrew Tate announced his conversion to Islam. I had personally never heard of Andrew Tate and know virtually nothing about him, and so I was initially inclined to simply let this pass by the internet’s short attention span like so many other briefly famous but ultimately irrelevant stories about this or that famous person converting to this or that religion. However, after watching a couple of the interviews in which he not only explains his conversion to Islam but (in some ways more interestingly) offers his own alleged arguments for God’s existence and explains what he believes about the nature of God, Satan, good, and evil (which turns out to be not only incorrect on many points but also incompatible even with his professed conversion to Islam), I decided that it might actually be educational to respond to some of Tate’s statements, not because his arguments are any good (as we will see, they are not) but rather because they provide an opportunity to show how to identify someone’s worldview and presuppositions and how these drive the person’s conclusions.
[The quotes below were transcribed from two interviews. One with Muslim YouTuber Mohammad Hijab, which you can watch for yourself at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnTiTg0Ouhs if you want to see the full context. The second interview was with the popular online personality Zuby, which you can view at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT8tiMK3aRE (WARNING: There are a few instances of profanity in this video)]
Andrew Tate’s Main Argument for God
While I will cover his specific thoughts on Islam and Christianity in a separate article, it is important first to look at the argument Andrew Tate presents for believing in God at all. In each of the interviews I watched, he raises the same basic case for God’s existence, and this is helpful to look at both for demonstrating the level of his thinking as well as showing the kind of god Tate consistently professes to believe in and how this affects his subsequent arguments and conclusions. In his interview with Mohammad Hijab, Tate explains:
“Some people recognize when I converted to Islam that there was a time I was an atheist. There was a time when I was atheistic. And the reason that I am now so absolutely certain that God is real is because I have seen evil. I have seen Shaitan. I’ve seen it! When you see enough evil, you realize that there must be an equal and opposite force. And there are people out there in the world today doing the work of the devil, genuine demons, who are trying to destroy the baseline morality that’s inside of all of us. We’re all born with some kind of morality, and they’re trying to destroy it.”
In the Zuby interview, Tate expounds on this much further:
“So, firstly, I found scientific proof for God. I am the man! Everyone’s been sitting here; all the atheists say there’s no proof for God. I’ve got it! Here’s the scientific proof for God! I’ve got all of it! I think it’s his third law, it might be his second, we’ll have to look it up if it’s his third or second law, but one of Newton’s laws is that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction; for every force, there is an equal and opposite force. Anyone who is perspicacious enough to look around them and sees true evil in the world today understands that there must be an equal and opposite to that true evil, which is good, which means that God must be real. If all of the evil in the world today is an act of the demons and devil, and people will try to pretend it isn’t, but if you truly understood things like the elites making you miss your grandma’s funeral to laugh at you…when you truly understand the level of evil in the world today, then you must understand that the only equal and opposite force can be God.”
After a brief side-step into another argument we will discuss shortly, he continues:
“So, I understood that the thing that made me stop being an atheist is simply the amount of evil that is all around us. I was like, ‘If this much evil, if Satan is gonna appear, if Satan appeared in front of you, you’re gonna have to say okay, then God must be real.’ And that’s the point we got to. I realized there was so much evil, so much injustice, so” [Interviewer interjects: “What specifically?”] “It was, it’s just the endless, genuine, deliberate attempts at destroying the baseline morality of humans. Just making us believe that, to the point that pedophilia isn’t even bad. Like, incest is okay. Like, things we know are wrong! We just innately know it’s wrong! And they’re just trying their best to destroy our moralities, and these moralities were installed in us by somebody or something, I believe God now, and they are attempting to destroy them. Who would attempt to destroy the baseline morality that is God-given? Satan! So if Satan is trying to destroy our morality, then God must be real. So, equal and opposite forces, Newton’s law, proved God.”
Tate touches on an important truth, but he deals with it in a way that is not only intellectually sloppy but also, and more importantly, leads to a concept of God that is not compatible with either Christianity or Islam. The real truth that Andrew Tate clumsily stumbles around here is that instances of clear, undeniable evil in the world do demonstrate God’s existence. This fact has been classically expressed as the moral argument. It is quite true that Atheism cannot provide a foundation for morality. If evil really exists, then by definition an objective standard of morality exists. God provides the only logical grounding for real, objective moral duties and values. Therefore, observable evil in the world actually points to God’s existence.
So far, all of this is quite true, but it is not quite what Andrew Tate actually argues. Instead, he repeatedly claims that evil is a force that demands an equal and opposite force. His argument insists on a dualism wherein God and His good are the equal and opposite force to Satan and his evil. Tate proposes a universe locked in conflict between these opposing but equal forces. And this is not just one poorly worded statement or a single bad analogy in an otherwise monotheistic argument. Read all of the above quotes fully. Watch the videos for the full context if you wish. This dualistic combat of equal, opposing forces is the whole point of Tate’s argument! He isn’t claiming that the existence of evil requires a higher moral framework but rather an equal and opposite force. At best, this argument might defend some ancient eastern religion like Manichaeism or Zoroastrianism, but it is certainly not an argument for God in the sense that any Christian or even Muslim would mean by the word. Thus, while the real truth that confronted Andrew Tate, the existence of real evil, does point to God’s existence, the sloppy dualistic argument that Tate actually builds around that truth does not support monotheism at all, and every Muslim should be cringing at this argument being associated with their religion rather than racing to share Tate’s videos just because he says nice things about Islam.
Andrew Tate’s Second Argument for God
As noted above, Tate also made a second argument as a tangent in the middle of his main one. In the Zuby interview, he said:
“Another thing I’ve argued with atheists is about, they don’t understand that even God as a concept, even just as a concept, in and of Himself, becomes a real thing. If you have a thousand people and those thousand people believe in a God, even if there’s no man in the sky but if those thousand people believing in God makes them act righteously, then even as a concept in and of itself, God is a real force. God, the idea, as a force, is making the people act righteously, so God must exist in some form.”
Let’s consider the straightforward implications here. In this argument, polytheism is actually true because many different gods, as ideas, impact the way people live. Indeed, children who believe in Santa Claus behave better because of their belief (at least for part of the year). So, if we take Andrew Tate’s reasoning seriously, Santa Claus, “the idea, as a force, is making people act righteously,” and so Santa Claus “must exist in some form.”
The truth is, while God really does exist, that doesn’t mean that every argument someone offers for God’s existence is a good argument. If your argument equally defends the existence of the Hindu pantheon, ghosts, elves, fairies, and even Santa Claus (all of which some people believe in and act differently in light of their beliefs), then your argument is a bad argument. Let’s be clear; this is the level of thinking that led Andrew Tate on his journey to Islam. It is on this level of reasoning that he reviles Christianity. And it is this that so many Muslims are racing to share because they apparently have nothing better to offer.
But I think there is actually more going on here. When we put Islam aside for a moment and look at Andrew Tate’s second argument in light of his first, a pattern immerges. What is Tate arguing for here? That “God” is the force that drives people to do good. That “force,” Tate argues, is what’s undeniably real. Now, Tate does at least seem to believe in both a god and a devil that are personal, but again, his entire philosophy is rooted in the idea that they are equal and opposite forces warring to determine human behavior. In the Zuby interview, he says that he doesn’t want to get into talking about the Quran and the Bible because “I look at the world through a very realistic understanding of force.” Once we see this, Tate’s second argument actually makes more sense (though it is not any more correct). His dualism assumes that good and evil behavior point to a universe in conflict between two equal and opposite supernatural forces. Therefore, if you have an idea of a supernatural being and that idea causes you to do good, that idea is the “good” force. It is Tate’s “god.” If your ideas cause you to do evil, they are manifestations of the evil force, the devil.
Thus, for Andrew Tate, a particular conception of “God” is considered more correct or incorrect based entirely on how effective it is at getting you to stand up for what Tate believes is good. This explains why (as we will examine more closely in a later article) Andrew Tate’s entire case for Islam and against Christianity is based on his perception of how each system allegedly leads people to behave. This is also why he shows no interest in evaluating the actual truth claims of each system.
The Problems
This case that Tate lays out for dualism and this for pragmatically affirming whatever religion leads people to “fight” the hardest for what is “good” regardless of that religion’s specific truth claims runs into all sorts of problems. I will here emphasize two: the problem of objective reality and the problem of determining morality.
The first issue is perhaps the most obvious: the truth claims really do matter. To take one example among many, it is a historical reality that Jesus died on the cross, even though the allegedly perfect Quran denies this. What’s more, it is a historical reality that Jesus miraculously rose from the dead, which affirms the very heart of Christianity. No matter how many people claim to be Christians while living like pagans, no matter how many people practicing Islam live generally moral lives, both religions are rooted in factual claims. These are not mere moral philosophies with spiritual energies. If Jesus died on the cross, the fundamental Islamic claim that the Quran is a perfect, heavenly book is not true. If Jesus rose from the dead in fulfillment of prophecies and in vindication of divine claims, then He is who Christians say He is, and Christianity is true. Compromised Christians or virtuous Muslims have nothing to do with it. These are faiths rooted in claims about specific prophetic revelations and historical people and events that, if not true, undermine the whole religion. One must accept or reject them on those claims or not at all. Christianity’s claims stand. Islam’s fail, Andrew Tate’s “forces” notwithstanding.
Secondly, Andrew Tate’s standard is internally flawed. He assumes that you can start with a system of morality and then just look around for which religion best helps people live up to and defend that standard. But how do you know that you have the right standard? It’s ultimately subjective. You pick the religion that stands up for and behaves like what you happen to feel is right. Your own feelings on right and wrong become the ultimate standard. Andrew Tate admits as much. In the Muhammad Hijab interview, Tate justifies his conversion, in part, by explaining that “Islam very closely reflects my personal beliefs” and “I understood all these things first, and then I saw the Quran, and it confirmed so many things for me.” In the Zuby interview, he likewise states, “if I’m gonna worship God in a way that is true to my own personal beliefs also, what I understand about the world, what I understand about strength, what I understand about defending ideals, there’s only one religion on earth I can respect.” He starts with his own beliefs as the standard and then looks for the religion that fits them, declaring that to be the strong and righteous religion, not because it changes him or teaches him something new, but rather because it allows him to stay the same and confirms what he already believed. After all, as he told Hijab, “I’ve always been a very disciplined person. I’ve never made mistakes.” Self-congratulation is not an adequate standard for truth.
Conclusion
Andrew Tate claims to have converted to Islam, but if monotheism is definitional to Islam, then he is not really a Muslim at all. Tate’s belief in “equal and opposite forces” battling for the moral soul of man is dualist. He may only call one of these forces “god,” but his worldview is that of two equal and opposing deities. This dualism leads him to strange and faulty arguments that don’t stand up to even moderate scrutiny. Even Muslims should hardly be impressed by his “conversion” videos, and Christians certainly should not find them persuasive.
Understanding his dualist worldview makes some sense out of his insistence on largely ignoring all scriptural, doctrinal, and historical issues and instead building his entire case on his idea of moral “forces” and his ultimately subjective assessment of group behaviors rather than any commitment to clear, objective truth or the distinctive claims of Christianity, Islam, or any other group of whom he speaks.
