What are the main views on who created God?

Question

The question of man's creation is addressed quite thoroughly in the Bible (whether you believe it is metaphorical or not). Does the Bible (or other relevant references) in any way answer who created God, or how he was created?

What is an overview of the major common or prevalent Christian* teachings on this topic?

Note, to the answers that say he was not created—some explanation, reasoning, and, ideally, references are what are being asked for here. Without any of that, it is an answer that is simply begging the question and not an answer that helps a questioning person.

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^{* Answers from any/all major denominations would be helpful.}

Answer 1

This question is not answerable from a Christian perspective; it presupposes God was created, but the Bible clearly teaches that God is eternal (in the truest sense of the word). An eternal being has no creator, no beginning, no end, and no cause. Rather he is the creator of all that is, the beginning and the end of all that is, and the cause of all that is.

Note, don't confuse eternal (having no beginning or end) with everlasting (just having no end). An eternal being is literally timeless, whereas an everlasting being exists in time and lasts from it's inception forever. An eternal being is everlasting, but an everlasting being is not necessarily eternal. Only God is eternal, though Christians will be raised to everlasting life in Christ.

Note also that when the Bible speaks of eternal life, it means the life that comes from Christ, which is itself eternal as Christ is; it is not speaking of those of us who receive this life somehow becoming eternal, per se.

For reference, Biblical teaching of God's eternal nature:

1. Genesis 21:33 Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called on the name of the LORD, the Eternal God.

2. Deuteronomy 33:27 The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. He will drive out your enemies before you, saying, 'Destroy them!'

3. Psalm 111:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise.

4. Psalm 119:89 Your word, LORD, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens.

5. Psalm 119:160 All your words are true; all your righteous laws are eternal.

6. Isaiah 26:4 Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD himself, is the Rock eternal.

Answer 2

Most mainline (most protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox) Christians believe that God has always existed, has no source, and no end, and that all things were created by Him.

The fourth question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism is

Q: What is God?

A: God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.

This is a view that is certainly supported by the Bible

Before the mountains were brought forth,

or ever you had formed the earth and the world,

from everlasting to everlasting you are God. Psalm 90:2

The first chapter of the Gospel of John also lends credence to this belief, indicating that all things were created through God/Jesus. If everything that was made was made through Him, He Himself could not be made.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. John 1:1-3

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Other sects may have other beliefs with regard to the nature of God and His origins.

Answer 3

St. Thomas Aquinas showed the existance of God using 5 ways. The second way deals with your question:

• We perceive a series of efficient causes of things in the world.
• Nothing exists prior to itself.
• Therefore nothing is the efficient cause of itself.
• If a previous efficient cause does not exist, neither does the thing that results.
• Therefore if the first thing in a series does not exist, nothing in the series exists.
• The series of efficient causes cannot extend ad infinitum into the past, for then there would be no things existing now.
• Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.

So that first efficient cause was not created.

(source)

Answer 4

God is simply "I AM". He never started nor will end. He has always been and always will be.

Answer 5

This question has been the subject of much philosophical and metaphysical enquiry. It belongs to the philosophical category of cosmology. Briefly, every thing, every action (or reaction), every event in the universe has a cause. There is an unbroken chain of causes going back in time. How far back? Most philosophers came to the conclusion that eventually there would be a First Cause, before which there were no prior causes, and this First Cause occurred (by definition) at the creation (beginning) of the universe. The Cosmological Argument is one of the arguments for the existence of God, and it identifies God as the First Cause.

So by this reasoning, by definition, God could not be created. If he was created, then God would not be the First Cause.

Answer 6

God does not change.

“I the LORD do not change. (Malachi 3:6a)

God transcends time:

“Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58)

The first verse indicates that, since God is not an effect, no cause is necessary to explain His existence.

The second verse strengthens the argument by demonstrating that God exists beyond the constraints of time.

Answer 7

We get the idea that God is not created throughout the Bible, some examples:

Revelations 22:13

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

In Isaiah God tells us that there is no other god besides Him. So no one to create Him.

Isaiah 45:5

I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. ...

In Genesis 2:4 it states:

These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.

The word LORD is Jehovah, which the definition is "the self-Existent or Eternal".

And in Genesis 1:1 we see: In the beginning God Created the heavens and the earth. So that means he by nature had to exist before the beging of time. We also see in 2 Peter 3:8—‘one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like a day’ also making it clear that God is completely outside of time.

We also see in 1 Kings 8:27

The Heaven of Heavens cannot contain the Glory of God.

So it makes it pretty clear before there was such an idea of space-time, the Bible said using other words, God is outside of the fabric of space-time. and speaking of fabric it says He "stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in: - Isaiah 40:22

So in closing, Even though it's hard to comprehend for some. God is outside of time, so He dosen't need to have a beginning.

Answer 8

Everything that we experience here on earth comes from something and goes somewhere. It's hard for us to even begin to consider something with life that did not have a beginning.

God is not a material being, he's a spiritual being. We understand matter, the growth and the decay and the cycles which are in place. Just as it's impossible for us to comprehend a fourth and fifth dimension, it is also impossible for us to comprehend life without a beginning.

If God where to tell us, through the Bible, how he exists, it would be impossible for us to understand it.

With that said, God has always been. God will always be. He is the life and the life giver.

He has not been created.

Answer 9

This objection is what the populariser Richard Dawkins brings up in his book the God delusion. Their he tells us that Aquinas is wrong because if everything has a cause it just raises like he puts it "The unanswerable question of who designed the designer or who created the creator."

In the end he does what philosophers like to call a strawman of the argument. It is when you misrepresent a position and then critique the results.

What Aquinas actually says is

1. Objects do not come into existence without a cuase (Which forms the basis of science ie cause and effect)
2. The universe came into existence (Affirmed by physicist like Stephen Hawkins)
3. Therefore the universe has to have a cause

Whatever the cause it had to exist outside of time and space to create the universe ie timeless and materialness It had to be all powerful It had to be all knowing

And before you know it you got yourself something resembling a God

The argument is perfectly logical and the points all clearly follow. So for the atheist to escape the conclusion he has to either prove a eternal universe or show things can come into existence without a cause

Notice though that saying the universe has a cause ans say everything has a cause is not the same. He in fact criticises a argument that no one makes. Especially not those who talk about the cosmological argument for God's existance.

This is the response in a nutshell.

Answer 10

John 1:1-18 (NIV)

The Word Became Flesh

¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴ In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome^[a] it.

⁶ There was a man sent from God whose name was John. ⁷ He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. ⁸ He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

⁹ The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. ¹⁰ He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. ¹¹ He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. ¹² Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— ¹³ children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

¹⁵ (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) ¹⁶ Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. ¹⁷ For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and^[b] is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

^[a] Or understood
^[b] Some manuscripts but the only Son, who

This scripture deals with the existence of God from eternity past. Technically it is recursive.. God and the Son of God are one. That is why in Genesis it says, "And God said Let us make man in our image." "Us" and "our" is plural but then God is a spirit and one God he is... obviously since God and the existence of God from eternity past Transcends everything we would classify as Aristotelian or Platonian logic.it is hard to grasp.. This is okay though since God created Plato and Aristotle and their logic (which we have been indoctrinated to use) is simply a apprehension of the truth and not a full comprehension of truth. I like many and there are many scriptures that deal with God's everlasting existence. I like this one above the most because it explains that God and the Word of God(Jesus Christ) has always existed...

Answer 11

The question assumes the existence of time, i.e. that there was a time before God. However, the first four words in the Bible are:

In the beginning God

Genesis 1:1

Since God was there at the start of time, it implies to me that He must have created time. This is another way of saying that He has always been in existence. Ever since time existed, God has been there.

This is also why God can be considered the First Cause: there was nothing before Him, because there was no time before Him.

Answer 12

Bible tells us that God is eternal and good numbers of verses are in answer posted by “Software Monkey”. Another imposing verse in Bible is from Isaiah 41:4 which says “.... I, the LORD, am present at the very beginning, and at the very end – I am the one.”

Although scientists now believe the universe had a beginning from nothing, they can’t tell us who was there to start it all. John reveals that before creation, “the Word already existed” and was “with God.”:

John 1:1:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was fully God.

Leaving aside these assertions from Bible that God being eternal, for a moment let us assume that God did not exist at the beginning. Imagine a time when there was nothing in existence neither God existed nor the universe or even the voids (empty space). Not even energy, matter, volume, space, time, thoughts, concepts or any physical laws. There was absolute nothing or absolute non existence. In this state of nothingness, the question that arises: how something had its origin from this state of “absolute nothing”?

“Absolute nothing”, is complete “non-existence”. No energy, matter, volume, space, time, thoughts, concepts, mathematical truths, etc., and no minds to consider this complete "lack-of-all". The mind of the reader trying to visualize this would be gone as well. But, in this "absolute nothing”, there would be also no mechanism present, to change this “nothingness” into the “something” that is here now. Nonetheless, because we can see and perceive that “something” is here now, the only possibility then is that “absolute nothing” was somehow instrumental in creating this “something”.

The fact is: This “absolute non existence” is not same as our mind’s conception of non-existence. In this absolute non existence neither the mind nor anything else is present. Because our minds exist, our mind's conception of non-existence is dependent on existence; that is, we must define non-existence as the lack of existence. But, non-existence itself, and not our mind's conception of non-existence, does not have this requirement; it is independent of our mind, and of existence, and of being defined as the lack of existence. Non-existence itself is on its own, and on its own, completely describes the ENTIRETY of what is there and is thus an “existent state” (which is inconceivable with our existent mind). Thus this “existent state” was instrumental in creating this “something” from itself. To our finite mind it is “absolute nothing” but that “State” is God eternal.

Therefore God is beyond our comprehension and He has no creator. He is a unique Force, capable of producing something from what we define as “absolute nothing”. It is an Eternal Entity that has been the initial cause of everything that we perceive-universe and everything that universe comprises of.

Answer 13

The Basic Christian teaching on this is as Genesis puts it (and as John echoes in his Gospel) 'in the Beginning, God...' All things start with God and proceed from there. Some other answers have talked about the eternal, which is just a way to say if God has a sort of beginning, it is not a temporal beginning and the word 'created' would not be the proper term as Christians use the term.

If God has some kind of Genesis of his own, it is beyond the scope of our knowledge. The only thing I have heard on the subject that comes close to answering this question comes from the Serbian Saint Nikolai :

Prayers By the Lake, XI

[...]

Eternity exists in eternity just as duration exists in time. In one eternity, O Lord, You were in ineffable sameness and Your vesperal blessedness. At that time Your hypostases were the truth within You, for it was impossible for them not to be in You. But they did not recognize one another, for they were unconscious of their diversity. In a second eternity You were in Your matinal blessedness, and the three hypostases recognized themselves as such.

The Father was not before the Son, nor was the Son before the Father, nor was the All-Holy Spirit before or after the Father and the Son. As a man while waking suddenly opens both eyes at the same time, so did the three hypostases within You suddenly open at the same time. There is no Father without the Son and no Son without the Holy Spirit.

[...]

In response to the question, the Christian answer could very well be, God himself.

Answer 14

Surely, if we define "God" as the supreme being... if that supreme being was created, then that which created it is the supreme being.

We cannot really fathom God, he does not subscribe to our laws. It's like an ant asking who created humans?

Answer 15

This answer is based on LDS theology. Note that the 'Logical Reasoning' portion is my own interpretation of official doctrine, and should not be accepted as official by any means.

From the accepted canon:

• All man has the potential to progress and be like God- Romans 3:16-17
• The course of God is one eternal round: References in LDS canon

Logical Reasoning:

If man can become as God now is, logic dictates that God was once like man.

If God was once like man, then he was created and had a God of his own. This gives us an endless chain of Gods and creations. I will use the term "Time" to mean that frame of reference where God was God (not man). The beginning of Time could refer to when God was changed from a disembodied spirit (died as a mortal man, spirit went to God) to a resurrected being (as the Atonement provides). The end of Time doesn't exist, because God will remain God forever (will always be our Father).

This is the explanation of "the course of God is one eternal round". God creates a world, populates it, and then judges it. After that, He starts over with a new world.

God creates man -> man becomes as God -> God creates man

Thus we have an eternal chain backwards of God's creating man, and an eternal chain of man becoming gods. This is like the revolution of the earth around the Sun. We start at Winter (nothing), go to Spring (creation), which leads to Summer (history of the earth), which leads to Fall (harvest, millennial reign of Christ), which returns to Winter (man becomes as God, but hasn't started creating worlds).

Summary

LDS theology claims that man can become like God. What that means isn't entirely described by current Revelation. The logical reasoning I provided may not be official Church doctrine, but it goes to show one possible explanation of where God came from.

Answer 16

I think we can only speculate here but one thing is for sure: God, being perfect, is obviously the most complex being one can imagine.

As far as the theological discussion goes there are only two mechanisms with which you can create complexity out of simplicity:

• evolution
• creation

God cannot have been created: One would need a Super-God, above that another Super-Super-God and so on which would create an infinity regress and we wouldn't know to whom to pray - and additionally it is written in the Holy Bible that there is only One God!

So it must have been an evolutionary process where at the end our Loving Father evolved. This is the only possible conclusion. How that happened exactly: Nobody knows an answer to this question - but we should all be grateful that it happend in the end!