If God created everything, who created God?
The Devotional Answer
This is an extremely challenging and important question! It's often the first objection raised against the idea of a Creator. It seems like a logical dilemma: if everything needs a cause, then God must need one too.
The Simple Answer
The short answer is: No one created God. By definition, God is the Uncreated Creator—the First Cause of all things. If God had a creator, then that being would be God, and the original being would simply be a creation. God must be the one, ultimate source that exists outside of time and space.
The Deeper Dive: Defining the Uncaused Cause
The question "Who created God?" is often called a category mistake. It wrongly puts God (the Creator) into the category of things that are created (the universe).
1. The Necessity of a "First Cause" 🌌
In both philosophy and theology, the need for a First Cause (also called an Uncaused Cause or Necessary Being) is essential to explain existence itself.
The Chain of Causes: Everything in the universe has a cause that brought it into existence (e.g., your parents caused you, the sun caused the plant, the Big Bang caused the universe). If this chain of causes goes back forever, it never actually starts, which means nothing should exist now. There must be a beginning, an ultimate starting point.
The Uncaused Starter: The First Cause must be a being that is not dependent on anything else for its existence. This being is what Christians call God. God doesn't have a cause; God is the cause.
Colossians 1:16 (NIV) confirms this distinction: "For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible... all things have been created through him and for him."
2. God is Outside of Time and Space ⏳
We naturally assume that everything has a beginning because we live within a universe of time and space. However, the scientific and biblical view is that the universe—including time and space—had a beginning.
If God created time and space (Genesis 1:1), then God must exist outside of time and space. Things that exist outside of time don't have a "beginning" or an "end"; they are eternal.
The Bible repeatedly emphasizes this eternal nature. God is not bound by the rules of the universe; He made the rules. He is existence itself.
God identifies Himself to Moses using this essential definition in Exodus 3:14 (NIV): "God said to Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM’ has sent me to you.'" The name itself implies self-existence and eternal presence.
3. The Definition of God is "Uncreated" ✨
The very definition of the Christian God is a being of ultimate reality who is self-existent.
If someone could point to a creator of God, then that "creator of God" would automatically become the true God because they would be the ultimate, uncaused source. The concept of "God" is always reserved for the necessary, uncreated being that is the ultimate source of all reality.
God’s Assurance
The eternity and uncaused nature of God provide the greatest comfort: He is an anchor that cannot be moved, a foundation that cannot be undermined, because He depends on nothing but Himself.
"Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God."
— Psalm 90:2 (NIV)
Your Takeaway Thought
You don't need a creator for God because that's what God is—the one being that has always existed, whose nature is to be uncreated and to cause all other things to exist.
