If God made everything, then who made God?” This is a question I often I hear from skeptics early in our conversation. As is often the case in these conversations, this question presupposes its own answer, and that is the whole problem with this line of thinking. To answer, we have to do what Jesus did, and answer the root of the question before answering the question itself.

As Christians, we know that no one created God. He said “I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God” (Isaiah 45:5, ESV). Because of this, we know there was nothing before God. And ever since Pasteur put the theory of spontaneous generation on the ash heap of junk science, we have known that nothing comes from nothing. That is, until some scientists revived the theory and applied it to whole universes instead of just maggots. They had to do this so they could explain the universe without needing God.

And this is the root of their problem. Skeptics are so afraid that there could be a God who owns them and to whom they owe their lives and allegiance that they must come up with a worldview that denies His existence and gives them an excuse not to believe. Unfortunately, this won’t work well for them. They may say, “[God] cannot touch us, for we have made a lie our refuge and falsehood our hiding place” (Isaiah 28:15, NIV), but God says, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.‘” He also tells us that they actually know that He exists but are suppressing that truth in their unrighteousness (Romans 1:18-20). It is foolish to try and hide from God behind a lie.

Christians often feel on the defensive when skeptics raise intelligent-sounding questions like, “who made God?” But we have to realize the skeptic’s problem is his deep denial of reality.
But even supposing they were being honest, their reasoning doesn’t make sense. If you take the godless worldview back all the way to its root you find that from the outset they presume nothing exists apart from natural things we can see and touch and test scientifically. Therefore, if a god existed, it would be part of that nature. And we can observe that nature is not static, things come and go, and everything has a cause. In this worldview it makes perfect sense to ask who created god because their concept of god is a creature just like us.

If we follow this logic all the way back, we must admit that there had to be a first thing from which all things came into existence. The Kalam Cosmological argument says that everything that came into existence has a cause outside itself. The universe came into existence. So the universe must have a cause outside itself. This First Cause must be greater than the universe, and cannot itself be caused by anything prior. If it had a cause, then it is no better than the universe it caused, and we must go back further to explain it.

So there are only two kinds of things: things that were brought into existence, and the One First Cause that was uncaused. It is self-existent and depends on nothing. Without this First Cause, we cannot explain the existence of the universe. And we can also see that this First Cause cannot be a material being made out of the stuff He made. He must be something greater and eternal. This First Cause is God.

But skeptics usually say it is nonsense to assert something that is eternal, universal, and immaterial. However, they rely on something like this every moment of every day: the laws of logic. If everything goes back to material things, then how do you explain the existence and reliability of the laws of logic? What material thing gave rise to them? And if something material did bring them into existence, how can these laws apply equally everywhere in the universe? There is no universal material thing that could make logic apply here, on Jupiter, and in far galaxies equally well as they do. The laws of logic are also immaterial. You cannot buy a pound of logic. You cannot measure the length of a thought. God’s name for the laws of logic is wisdom (Proverbs 8:22-31), and He made wisdom before He made the universe. They have eternally been here. Some skeptics like to say that gravity caused the universe, but that is only substituting one eternal, immaterial, universal starting point for another. So, if they were honest, skeptics would have to admit they really can’t explain anything without resorting to something eternal, universal, and immaterial. So the real proof of God’s existence is that without Him you can prove nothing at all. All reasoning is dependent on Him. All the skeptics’ arguments depend on the very thing they deny.

Only if you assume in advance that eternal, universal, and immaterial can exist does it become nonsense to assert the existence of God. You have to start with the presupposition, the preconceived notion, the bias that something like God is not possible. Skeptics don’t like to admit they start with preconceived notions. They like to think they start with just their observations of the universe, just the facts, and can explain the existence of everything. In all my years of talking with hundreds of skeptics, I have only once found a skeptic honest and humble enough to admit she was starting from a belief that everything must exist as part of the natural world.

Christians often feel on the defensive when skeptics raise intelligent-sounding questions like, “who made God?” But we have to realize the skeptic’s problem is his deep denial of reality. The Christian worldview actually has an explanation for the existence of everything because we believe in God who is powerful and eternal enough to be that First Cause. Skeptics can explain nothing at all without depending on Him. I don’t suggest you try to argue them out of their beliefs, though. I suggest you love them and pray for them. They need the very God they are running from, and they are afraid even to make sense.

Blog by Glenn Fink
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