You have questions about God. You aren’t alone. In fact, the number one search in the United States of people who have questions about God is: Who created God? Since each of us has a beginning, we have a hard time conceiving of a being with none. In fact, it is easier to comprehend no end (who likes to consider their own mortality?) than it is to understand no beginning.
The Question from an Atheist’s Point of View
From an atheist’s point of view, the question is asked in one of two ways. First, as a way to show the supposed absurdity of Christian beliefs. They use the question as a challenge, believing that the common response of, “God always was,” to be a ridiculous and foolhardy answer. Second, the question is asked in the context of wondering when mankind, in our evolution, invented God.
Many atheists believe that man created the idea of God in order to control their fellow — man. It is true that religion through the ages has been abused in this fashion, and this fact only lends fire to their attacks on God.
But in point of fact, the belief held by the majority of Christianity that God always was, that He had no beginning, is one shared by the typical atheist — not that God exists, but that “something” always was and never had a beginning. Atheists must believe in the Big Bang if they deny God’s existence. But where did that matter at the center of the Big Bang come from? When pressed, the atheist must admit that the matter “always was,” that such matter never had a beginning, that it is always expanding, contracting, and exploding again. They believe it never had a creator.
In that context, the faith of the atheist and the faith of the Christian are similar. Both believe something always was — that something never had a beginning and never had a creator. The only difference being that the atheist believes that inanimate and unthinking matter always was, while Christians believe that an active and intelligent Being always was.
But What If God Had a Creator?
If God had a creator, we run into a similar problem as presented above. For who then created the being that created God? And who then created the being that created the being that created God? Following that progression, if time is eternal, then there should be an infinite amount of powerful beings each having created one of the others.
At some point, you have to wonder: where did it start? And if it did indeed start with some being, then was that being always there? This brings us full circle again to the belief that something always was and never ever had a beginning or a creator.
The whole line of thinking is even more difficult to grasp than that a single being, God, had always been and always will be.
The Problem with the Question of Who Created God
The problem with even asking the question is that it first assumes that time always was. Which is somewhat ironic since those who ask it are questioning how God could always have been, yet they automatically assume that time itself always was, that time never had a beginning and that time doesn’t have a creator.
Genesis 1:5 claims that time started on the first day of creation. Revelation 10:6 predicts that time shall come to an end. So if time is something God created, then how could God have a beginning when He existed before time itself? A beginning, by default, assumes the pre-existence of time. But time had a beginning and had a creator — God.
Worse, the question is asked from a limited point of view. If there is a God who never was and who created all things — including time — then it would stand to reason that God’s reality and understanding of reality is much broader than ours. Our understanding of reality is limited to five senses and four dimensions: taste, touch, sight, smell, hearing, and height, width, depth, and time. Our interaction with reality is limited to those nine aspects. This also limits our understanding, for anything outside or beyond those perceptions means we have no way at all to comprehend or interact with it.
Think with me for a moment. If there existed merely twenty more senses and twenty more dimensions outside of the ones we have, what would reality be? I heard someone speculate that if a three-dimensional person stuck his nose an inch away from a two-dimensional person, the two-dimensional person would not be capable of seeing the three-dimensional person. Lacking the ability to perceive that third dimension effectively hid the three-dimensional person from the two-dimensional person.
Therefore, if God exists in more dimensions than we do, our ability to perceive Him could be impaired. Indeed, our ability to comprehend how God could have always been would also be limited.
God Has Provided a Means of Interacting with a Being Outside Our Limitations
If the above is true, that God exists in more dimensions than we can comprehend, then it would be up to Him to provide us a way to interact with Him. It would be up to the three-dimensional person to find a way to allow interaction with the two-dimensional person without destroying the two-dimensional person accidentally.
God has chosen the mediums of faith and prayer to do this. It is through our faith and prayer that we interact with a real God who always was. We could wish it different, but the two-dimensional person is limited in what he can perceive and understand, so the means of interaction is always left up to the three-dimensional person. The means of how we commune and interact with God is left up to God, not the other way around.
