Who created God?

Q: I keep telling my daughter not to judge Christianity by looking at the flawed people who claim Christ. Judge it by going to the source. She says, “God can’t exist because…Who created God?” “How do you know that God is real and not just a bed time story from back in the day?” She is 14.

A: It seems like there are three really big questions wrapped up in this one statement. I will do my best to tackle the 2^nd and 3^rd ones, knowing that others will be addressing the question of the flawed people in Christianity.

“God can’t exist because…Who created God?” That’s a great question that has been asked and talked about for lots and lots of years. Where did God come from? Who created Him? He can’t just exist, can He? One way to answer this question is to look at, say, a car.

If you have a car in your driveway or garage right now, take a glance at it, or think about it in your mind. Where did it come from? The car dealership, right? Where did they get it from? The auto manufacturer. Where did they get it from? Well, they got the various parts from all over: the tire manufacturer, the seat manufacturer, the glove compartment latch manufacturer, etc. Well, where did they get the materials to make those parts? From all over the place. But eventually, the line of where things come from has to end somewhere. For example, the tire manufacturers are the starting place for the tires. They didn’t get the tires from anywhere else. They created them. But still, they had to get the rubber from somewhere, right. The materials that go into rubber – not sure what those are, exactly – had to come from somewhere.

What I just described with the automobile is the end result in a long line of supply and demand. Someone has a demand for something, and they get it from somewhere. But if you follow that line back long enough, it has to end. Material doesn’t simply start to exist out of nothing. There has to be a First Cause, a being that creates out of nothing. As you look at the universe, it is clear that it had to come from somewhere, from something. The Christian worldview would say that there is a Creator, a God, that created all of it. Many in the scientific world would suggest that there was Big Bang that the universe was created out of; that there was a bunch of gasses that got together, forming a chemical reaction, setting off an explosion, from which the world and everything else in the universe was created (sorry for the simplistic way I stated this – not trying to offend those in the scientific world with the simple explanation; just trying to keep an already long post somewhat short). If that viewpoint is accurate, I have just one question: where did the gasses come from? Didn’t they have to come from somewhere? Matter doesn’t just start to exist, it has to be created. So even if the Big Bang happened like that, there still had to be a Creator that created those gasses. We put a name on that Creator: God.

Let’s dive into the 2^nd question, that being the idea that God is a bedtime story. Step outside of Christianity and the Bible for just a moment, and let’s just talk about the generic idea of God. To address this question, I would like you to think about an iPhone. Cool, huh? As you think about an iPhone and all of the things it can do – surf the internet, make a phone call, give directions, play music, take pictures, play movies, make breakfast – you realize that it is a very complex instrument. Something that complex and intricate couldn’t have possibly just come into existence on its own, could it? It’s very evident that there had to be something that made that lovely piece of electronics (can you tell I want one?).

Now compare that to the complexity of the universe. Take into consideration that if the earth were any closer to the moon, the tides would overwhelm the earth. Or that the tilt of the axis of the earth is perfect, and that if it were any different, life would not be possible on earth. Or that the rate of expansion of the universe would have to fall within certain limits for life to exist – if it was too fast, planets and stars wouldn’t be able to form; too slow, and gravity would have pulled everything back together creating a big crunch – and it does! There are so many more, but I’ve gone on too long already. The atheist would suggest that it all happened by chance. As you look at all of the facts, there is far too much complexity in the universe for it to have just happened by chance. There had to have been a Creator. Again, we call that Creator God. To believe in a God is far less fairy tale-esque than to believe that all this complexity just happened by chance