WHO CREATED GOD?
By: Daniel McMillin
The world-renowned evolutionary biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins suggests in his book The God Delusion that “the designer hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the designer.” He, like many others, interprets the Christian claim that since the universe had a beginning, there must be a sufficient cause behind the existence and origin of the universe, namely, God. This moves many to ask, “If God created the universe, then who created God?” The sole reason that this objection to the “designer hypothesis” fails to hold any grounds is due to the fundamental misunderstanding of the word “God,” chiefly His essence and existence. As Gavin Ortlund wrote, “God is by definition the utterly unique, uncaused, necessary, self-existent Being.” Here, we will investigate the nature of God to address this pressing question in four ways: (1) God is the greatest conceivable being, (2) God is the uncaused First Cause of the universe, (3) God is the eternal Creator of the universe, and (4) God is the transcendent Maker of all things.
First, God is the greatest conceivable being. Anselm of Canterbury famously defined God as “something-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought.” That is, our minds cannot think of a being that is even greater than what we call “God.” Now, if God is dependent on something else other than Himself, that is, if He were caused, then He is no longer the greatest conceivable being since that thing that God depends upon would be greater than Him since it created God. Thus, only a being that is solely independent of all exterior causes could be the greatest conceivable being. This is why, as one looks throughout all creation, one will see that there must be a Creator because they see the evidence for one of whom there is none greater than: God. As the apostle Paul says, “Since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” (Rom. 1:20). Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica proposes five ways for the essence and existence of God argues:
(1) Motion implies a mover; there must be an unmoved Mover.
(2) Nothing exists prior to itself; therefore there must be an efficient cause of all things which is itself the singular uncaused Cause.
(3) If every being is contingent, it is possible that there was a time when nothing existed. If there was a time when nothing existed, then nothing would be caused to exist. This implies that there must be a Being which is uncaused and the necessary ground for contingent existence.
(4) The reality that some things are better and some things are worse implies that there is an utmost by which all things are compared. This utmost thing must be the greatest of all possible beings without weakness. This being, then, must be every perfection.
(5) The physical world manifests design and purpose. Since the world manifests design and purpose there must be an ultimate being who designed and purposed all things.
Second, God is the uncaused First Cause of the universe. Every cause has an effect. However, this does not apply to God because He is, by definition, uncaused. Everything that has a cause has an origin, but God is without origin because there was nothing that caused Him to exist. Instead, all things in existence are made through Him as He powerfully creates all things out of nothing. As John wrote in the prologue of his gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” (John 1:1-3). In sum, creation owes its existence to God because nothing would be made “apart from Him” since all things were made “through Him.” God was present “in the beginning” and acted as the eternal “God” in creation. The apologist William Lane Craig famously proposed the “Kalam Cosmological Argument,” which is formulated as follows:
(1) Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
(2) The universe began to exist.
(3) Therefore, the universe has a cause.
God is the unmoved mover who acts and creates. He is the first cause, and creation is the effect of that first cause. As Craig A. Carter wrote, “All that exists owes its existence to God, but God owes his existence to no one and nothing.”
Third, God is the eternal Creator of the universe. God is the Creator of space, time, and matter. As we read in Genesis 1:1, “At the beginning [time] God created the heavens [space] and the earth [matter].” Since God is the Creator of space, time, and matter, He must be outside of space, time, and matter. God cannot be limited or measured by space because He is infinite, God is not physical or material because He is spiritual, and God is not in time, but time is in Him since He is eternal. As an eternal creator of all things, including time, then God has no origin since there can be no time when God does not exist. God always has and will exist. And so, it is impossible for God to be created since there never was a time when God did not exist. As Paul wrote, “All things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:16-17). Additionally, John wrote in the Revelation of Jesus, “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.’” (Rev. 1:8). God is, as it is written in the book of Hebrews, “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8). Since God has always existed, it is impossible to say that He, at one time, was created.
Fourth, God is the transcendent Maker of all things. God is above and beyond His creation, as He independently exists outside of the things He has made. Since God created the universe, He does not depend on the universe. Rather, the creation (universe) is dependent on the Creator (God). God is not within the universe but sovereignly acts over the universe as the Lord of creation. Here, the Creator is distinguished from the creature, who is entirely unlike anything else. As the prophet Jeremiah said, “There is none like you” (Jer. 10:6). The apostle Paul, when he formulates the nature of God at the Areopagus, says, “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, For we also are His children. Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.” (Acts 17:24–29).
In light of who God is, we now return to the question, “Who created God?” and realize that to ask this question fails to represent the God of the Bible since it assumes that He was created. In response to Dawkins, we recognize that his thesis (1) misunderstands what is meant by the word “God,” who is the greatest conceivable being, (2) misrepresents the Christian claim that God is the uncaused First Cause of the universe, (3) ignores the eternity of God which explains that God has always existed and cannot be created, and (4) misses the transcendence of God where He is categorically different from creation since He does not have an origin. In sum, it is clear that nothing created God, but instead, God created everything, which is why He is a being worthy of worship. As Paul wrote, “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen” (Rom. 11:36).
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