Who Is God? Introduction | Who Created God?
Six Personality Traits of God | Who Is God in Judaism?
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Introduction | A Discussion about Time | God's "Time" and Our "Time"
God Is Omnipresent | God Created Time | Let's Talk about "Boxes"
What Does Blue Smell Like? | Summing It Up
Introduction
The question of who created God is a most difficult question to answer, primarily because it infers a false assumption that God must have come from somewhere.
As stated in another lesson, the Bible does not try to prove God's existence; rather, it assumes His existence from the very beginning — not His beginning, but ours.
A Discussion about Time
Before we can consider the eternality of God, we must first go to a discussion about "time".
Whether believer or unbeliever, evolutionist or creationist, our concepts of "time" — for the most part — differ greatly from the reality of the "time" in which our God dwells and over which He has ultimate control. Simply put, He does not dwell in a simple package of time such as we do.
Humankind has three dimensions to which we can lay claim: the past, the present, and the future. And, presuming God can and does exist in any or all of these and has the divine ability to likewise exist in Heaven, then He must exist in at least four dimensions (past, present, future, Heaven). But the Apostle Paul says that there are three heavens, and I have found at least four levels of Hell. Theoretically speaking, that brings the count to 11 in which God must or might exist. Mankind's three dimensions are grossly limited by comparison.
Much of the controversy among believers and skeptics/atheists/evolutionists concerning God's eternal existence revolves around our respective concepts of time. Both camps live in the sphere of the present-tense within the confines of a 24-hour day and a 365-day year. However, there are vastly differing opinions upon the understanding of time in the past-tense, which is where the discussion of God's origin must take place:
- Evolutionists believe that life on earth began "X"-number of years ago. Regardless of where X may seem to appear on the human-determined timeline of life, it is in a constant state of flux even within the circle of X "authorities".
- Creationists believe that life began at the creation described in the book of Genesis, or for the sake of debate, "Y". Since Y begins in the book of Genesis, for the most part, then, Y would seem to be a constant.
God's "Time" and Our "Time"
According to God's Word, time is not the same to God as it is to humankind.
- God dwells in a realm called "Infinity". "Infinity" means a state of being . . .
immeasurably or indefinitely great;
unlimited duration of time; and
boundless; unlimited. - Humankind, on the other hand, dwells somewhere along a timeline of the years that have transpired since man began recording time.
And therein lies the conflict. While we take time at face value (a year being 365 24-hour days), Infinity is continuous with no beginning or end. The Bible says, "...one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." (2 Peter 3:8 KJV)
Christians and evolutionists alike use the dating system of BC and AD (before Christ and anno Domini) or "BCE" and "CE" (before common era and "common era"). Our concept of time and of dating events is so deficient in light of Infinity, that we have great difficulty even beginning to grasp the rudimentary fringes of a Creator who lives at all times and in all places . . . always.
God Is Omnipresent
This brings us to a quality which belongs to God alone: omnipresence. Roughly defined, omnipresence is the ability to be everywhere, in all places, at the same time — past, present, and future — all the time. As finite beings, it is impossible for us to even begin to grasp this broader scope of time.
When we limit ourselves to the theory that everything must have a specific time of beginning or birth, then it is nearly impossible to comprehend that God is timeless. He has no beginning or end, no mother or father, no creator. He is Eternal.
God Created Time
In asking who created God, we are trying to ascribe a beginning to the Person who established the universe and everything within it, living or otherwise. God created everything and every limitation that is placed on everything. He could just as easily remove any or all of those limitations should He desire to do so. The Bible says that God could take the breath away from every living thing in the twinkling of an eye if He desired to do so (cf. Isaiah 42:5).
We tend toward the notion that we can tell God how to think, what to do, and who deserves His attention. But the simple fact is that, just as an artist does not need someone else to tell him how to interpret his own painting, God does not need us to tell Him how to be God!
Human beings have a tendency to put things into "boxes". We all do this at one time or another. We are born, we live our lives with certain abilities and disabilities/limitations, and then we die. This is our life, our time on earth, our "box".
Because of this, we also have a tendency to try to put God into a box. But as the Creator and Sustainer of all life, He is the One who has placed us in our box. In other words, if there's a box at all, God is the box — or perhaps more accurately, He is the "box maker".
In the very simplest of terms, God has placed us in a box which consists of time, life, and death. That box, then, is actually suspended within a larger box. The top of the larger box might be where we'd find Heaven and the bottom of the box might be Hell. Outside of this larger box is the space called "Infinity"; and if there is a box around it, too, it must be so gigantic that it cannot be seen.
Now imagine, if you will, that God is looking at this little illustration and determines that it is a nice try, but not quite right. So, He snaps His fingers and the boxes disappear. There is life and death, Heaven and Hell, and Infinity — but there are now no boundaries. There is absolutely nothing that could even begin to be a deterrent to God's traveling wherever He might want to go.
Past, present, future . . . future, past, present . . . far into the future . . . far into the past . . . or just skimming along the outer rim. He's God, and He can go anywhere He wants to go, anytime He wants. He doesn't live in a box. People live in a box (usually one we've constructed ourselves).
What Does Blue Smell Like?
Borrowing a course of reasoning from another website that does this question justice rather concisely and coherently:
- The question is tricky because it sneaks in the false assumption that God came from somewhere and then asks where that might be. The answer is that the question does not even make sense. It is like asking, "What does blue smell like?" Blue is not in the category of things that have a smell, so the question itself is flawed. In the same way, God is not in the category of things that are created or caused. God is uncaused and uncreated — He simply exists.
How do we know this? We know that from nothing, nothing comes. So, if there were ever a time when there was absolutely nothing in existence, then nothing would have ever come into existence. But things do exist. Therefore, since there could never have been absolutely nothing, something had to have always been in existence. That ever-existing thing is what we call God. God is the uncaused Being that caused everything else to come into existence. God is the uncreated Creator who created the universe and everything in it.
["Who Is God", gotQuestions?org. np. Web. 9 August 2011.
Summing It Up
The fact of God's eternal "ever-existing" self-existence is not something our finite minds can even begin to understand. For us, all things are temporal, all things have a beginning and an ending. And while that's true of all other false gods in the world, the God who inspired the holy Scriptures has no beginning. He simply has always been!
If you think about it, if someone else created God, then God would cease to be God! He would no longer be the Supreme Being, but a lesser created Being. But God revealed to Moses His eternality when He said, "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh [I am/will be what I am/will be]," and added, "Here is what to say to the people of Isra'el: 'Ehyeh [I Am or I Will Be] has sent me to you.'" (Exodus 3:14 CJB) In telling Moses that His name or attribute is "I Am", He was unveiling a mystery in which He asserted that He has always existed and does exist eternally. He did not try to explain it to Moses because He knew the explanation far exceeds our understanding. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:9)
In addressing Moses, He simply stated the truth — to be accepted or rejected, but without explanation or defense. After all, our acceptance or rejection neither diminishes nor intensifies His glory or the reality of who He is. He simply is . . .
So, the answer to who created God — if it still needs an answer — perhaps could be best answered that God created God!
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