This is a question that many, many atheists have asked Christians whenever Christians try to argue for God as Creator and Designer of the universe (by using, for example, The Kalam Cosmological Argument, or The Fine Tuning Argument). Once the argument for creation is over, the atheist will retort “Oh yeah? Well, if God made the universe, then who made God?” Children ask this question as well, though out of sincerity rather than as a rhetorical ploy to stump the theist. I know this because this was probably the very first theological question I think I ever asked. First, what does The Bible have to say about this, second, is it really rational to think that God even needs to have a maker to begin with?
What Does The Bible Say In Response To This Question?
Scripture actually provides the answer to this question in several verses throughout scripture. What The Bible teaches is that God is uncreated and is eternal in His being. That is to say; He always existed and always will exist.
There are numerous references throughout scripture about God’s eternal nature.
Psalm 90:2 says “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”
Isaiah 57:15 says “For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity…”
1 Timothy 1:17 says “To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”
Habakkuk 1:12 says “O LORD, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, we will not die. O LORD, you have appointed them to execute judgment; O Rock, you have ordained them to punish.”
God says in Revelations 1:8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,: says the Lord, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
So, according to The Bible, who created God? The Bible answers; Nobody. Nobody created God. He has always existed and always will exist. He has existed “from everlasting”.
It’s More Logical To Believe In An Uncreated Creator Than A Created One
But wholly apart from what The Bible teaches about God’s eternal existence. It’s more logical to believe in a uncreated Creator than a created one. Why? Because If God had a creator who brought Him into existence, then we could ask “who created that God?” Does the God who created God have a Creator too? Did someone make Him? If so, then who created the one who created God? And who created the one who created the one who created God? And who created the one who created the one who created the one who created God? And who created the one who created the one who created the one who created the one who created God? And who created the one who created the one who created the one who created the one who created God?
It seems that if you reject the possibility of an uncreated Creator, than you get thrown into an infinite regress of Creators creating Creators. But then…how could the universe ever come into being? For because before the Creator who brought our universe into existence (i.e Yahweh) could come into being, the one who brought Him into being had to be created, and before He could come into being, the one who created him had to come into being, and before that creator could come into being, the one before him had to come into being and so on back to infinity. No creator could ever come into being because there would have to be an infinite number of creators creating creators before any one of them could come into being. No creator could ever come into being because there would always be a creator to precede him.
At some point in the regress of creators, it seems that we must get back to an eternal, uncreated Creator; a Creator who has always existed. Otherwise, we wouldn’t exist (and neither would any of the creators begetting creators). But why have a regress of Creators at all? Why have even a finite regression of creators? It seems that if one uncreated creator is all that’s needed to explain the creation of our universe then we should just assume that the One who brought our universe into being is the uncreated one. Ockam’s Razor (the scientific principle that suggests you shouldn’t multiply causes to explain something beyond what’s necessary) would suggest that we not have a regression of creators at all. The one who brought our universe into being is the uncreated one.
Moreover, Atheists Historically Have Not Denied The Possibility of Something Being Eternally Existent.
I also want to stress that this isn’t special pleading for God. This is what the atheist has typically said about the universe; that the universe is uncreated and eternal in its existence. No atheist was asking “Who created the universe”? They thought the universe was “Just there”, that it was a brute fact. Although that conclusion is now invalidated by powerful scientific evidence and philosophical arguments. As Frank Turek put it “Something must be eternal. Either the universe, or something outside the universe”. Since science has proven that the universe isn’t eternal, whatever brought it into being must be eternal.
