If God Made the Universe, Then Who Made God?

Our universe is governed by a set of physical laws and principles that are constant. The law of gravity, for example, describes the fact that, “Whatever goes up must come down.” If I hit a baseball into the air, I can assume that the ball will return to earth (most likely only a few feet away). Why? The law of gravity tells me so.

Another law of the universe is known as causality . Causality tells us that everything in this world comes from something else. When I was a kid, I would come downstairs on Christmas morning and see a mountain of presents underneath the tree. Never once did I stop drinking my hot chocolate with marshmallows to ask, “How did these gifts appear out of nowhere ?” I assumed that these gifts had come from someone, and I was right … even though I was wrong about the whole Santa Claus thing. My parents were the cause of my pile of presents. Examples of causality are all around us: Paper comes from trees. Lung cancer comes from smoking. Good grades come from studying. Strong muscles come from lifting weights. The chicken comes from the egg (or is it the other way around?). Babies come from … well, you get the point!

In short, everything in the physical universe is the effect of some other cause . Nothing we can see, touch, taste, hear, or smell just pops into existence from nowhere. If everything in the universe has been caused by something else, then we must look outside the universe to find the cause of it all—the first and uncaused cause. After all, the chain of causes has to end somewhere in the past, else it would stretch back forever. We know that’s impossible in a universe that had a beginning to its existence.

The Bible teaches that the Uncaused Cause of our universe is God. Colossians 1:16 says of God the Son, “For everything was created by him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through him and for him.” God is the ultimate Cause that sets all other causes and effects into motion. He is supernatural , meaning he exists outside the natural universe and isn’t governed by natural laws. Hence, God doesn’t need a cause for his existence. Asking the question, “Who made God?” is similar to asking the question, “What does an invisible man look like?” By definition, a man who is invisible cannot be seen. If I ask what he looks like, I’m asking a question that changes his nature of invisibility. Once I change his nature, he is no longer the thing I’m asking about. In other words, if an invisible man looked like anything , he would no longer be invisible. By definition, God is uncaused. If I ask, “Who made God?” then I have changed God’s nature and am no longer asking about God—the Uncaused Cause.