Answering the Question – “Who Made God?”

*#4 in the Series: Knowing What & Why You Believe – October 12, 2020 – Pastor David Craig 

Introduction

• Those of us who are parents have had a conversation with our young children that goes something like this: “Dad, who made me?” “God made you.” “Who made the sun and the moon?” God made the sun and the moon.” “Who made the animals?” “God made everything.” “Dad, who made God?”

• To ask the question, “Who made God?” commits a category fallacy. It assumes that God is a contingent (dependent), caused entity. However, Philosophy and the Bible assert that by definition God is uncaused and eternally existent.

• Asking the question, “Who made God?” is like asking, “How did Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata taste?” Or “Did you hear the color of that rose?” It just doesn’t fit. God wants made just like a song doesn’t taste, and you can’t hear the color of a rose.

• This category fallacy was made by the famed atheist, Bertrand Russell, when he made the statement, “If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause.” But its not true that everything has a cause. Only that which begins to exist must have a cause.

• “The Second Law of Thermodynamics reveals that the universe must have a beginning since it is running out of useable energy. Therefore, the God who made the universe must be without a beginning. Why? Because the Law of Causality says that everything that has a beginning had a beginner. It is ridiculous to assert that nothing can make something but is entirely reasonable to assert that something (i.e., God) can make something out of nothing. Therefore, God is the uncaused (eternal), first (originator) cause (Creator) who created everything that exists.” ~ Norman L. Geisler, The Bible’s Answers To 100 Of Life’s Biggest Questions, p. 27).

The Aseity of God (God’s Independence and Self-Existence)

“With respect to the doctrine of God, his attribute of self-existence. God’s very nature is to exist; he is not and cannot be dependent on anything or anyone. This attribute underscores the Creator-creature distinction: whereas the Creator is completely independent, creatures are completely dependent, contingent on his will for their existence. Proof that God is self-sufficient is that he “made the world and everything in it” (Acts 17:24). Because he has life in himself (John 5:26), he is able to give ‘life and breath and everything’ to his creatures (Acts 17:25). Though independent, God has designed his people to glorify him.” ~TBCDOT, Gregg Allison

“A reference to the fact the basis of God’s life is within himself and is not caused by anything external.” ~ TCDOCT, Millard Erickson

“The view that God is entirely self-sufficient and not dependent on anything else (Lat. aseitas, “self-existence,” from a se “of itself” or “from himself”) ~ TWDOTT, Donald K. McKim

“The doctrine that God has life within himself and depends on nothing else for his existence. He is the living God, he gives to all and needs nothing (Jer. 2:13; John 5:26; Acts 17:24-25).” ACDOTT, Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A. Peterson

“God exists by his own power. He alone is self-existent. Aseity, meaning “self-existence,” is the characteristic that separates him from all other things. God is the only one who can say, ‘I am who I am’…The grand difference between a human being and a Supreme Being is precisely this: Apart from God I cannot exist; apart from me God does exist. God does not need me in order for him to be. I do need God in order for me to be. This is the difference between what we call a self-existent being and a dependent being…In him we have our being. It is because of his self-existence that we can exist at all. You and I exist in his power and by his power. We are because he is.~ R.C. Sproul, Enjoying God, pp. 29, 32, 39.

“God has of himself all that he has, while other things have nothing of themselves. And other things, having nothing of themselves. And other things, having nothing of themselves, have their only reality from him.” On the Fall of the Devil 1 (Anselm [1033-1109 A.D.] Major Works. 194).

“God is exclusively from Himself, not in the sense of being self-caused but being from eternity to eternity who He is, being not becoming. God is absolute being, the fullness of being, and therefore also eternally and absolutely independent in His existence, in His perfections, in all His works, the first and the last, the sole cause and final goal of all things. In this aseity of God, conceived not only as having being from Himself but also as the fullness of being, all other perfections are included.” ~ Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 2, p. 152

Some Ramifications of God’s Aseity

(1) God is not needy. He doesn’t need you and He doesn’t need me. In fact, He doesn’t need the world at all. It’s not as if He was bored, twiddling His thumbs, desperately lonely prior to creating the world. God is not dependent on the world for His happiness and self-fulfillment. Instead, He possess life in and of Himself. More precisely, He is the fullness of life in and of Himself. 

• In view of God’s independence and self-sufficiency, perhaps we wonder, why He would care about us if He remains entirely without need? God created us not because He needed us but because He loved us. He loved simply because He chose to do so. We bank on Him, not Him on us!

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love he predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth.” ~ Ephesians 1:3-10 

(2) God doesn’t need to be defended. He can defend Himself. He can move people and nations. He can shut down and raise up things and people. That’s why the Scriptures says, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, ‘says the Lord’ (Romans 12:19). God will one day execute complete justice on those who have rebelled against Him and not repented of their sin and put their trust in Christ.

(3) As the Creator of all things, God owns all things. “The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein” (Psalm 24:1).

(4) When we give something back to God, we give Him only what He has first given us. We are stewards of God’s land (Luke 12:42; 16:1-8; Titus 1:7)., accountable to use these blessings for His glory. Everything in creation remains his, even after He has given it to us, so even our own possessions are His.

(5) God owes us nothing. “Who has given to me, that I should repay Him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine.” ~Job 41:11

(6) We are totally dependent upon God for existence, sustenance, and where we will spend eternity.

“For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.” ~ Romans 11:36

So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for “ ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “ ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent, because He has fixed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom He has appointed; and of this He has given assurance to all by raising Him from the dead.” Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” So Paul went out from their midst. But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them. ~ Acts 17:22-34

Jesus, “And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” ~ Matthew 25:46

Jesus, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him…Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” ~ John 3:17, 36

Food For Thought: It’s a whole lot easier to believe that Something took nothing and made something than it is to believe that nothing took nothing and made something.

*You can subscribe to Valley Baptist Church San Rafael on YouTube to hear the Apologetics lectures from the series: Knowing What and Why You Believe, as well as Pastor David Craig’s sermons on the book of Daniel in the Series: Going Against the Flow of Culture.

Resources on God’s Aseity

• Barrett, Matthew. None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God. (Chapter 4, “Does God Depend On You?”). Grand Rapids: MI: Baker, 2019.
• Conway, Bobby. Does God Exist? (Chapter 2, “Who Made God?”). Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2016
• Copan, Paul. If God Made The Universe Who Made God? 180 Arguments For The Christian Faith. (Chapter 23, “If God Made the Universe, Who Made God?”). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2012.
• Feinberg, John. No One Like Him: The Doctrine of God. (Chapter 6, “The Attributes of God”). Wheaton: IL: Crossway, 2001.
• Frame, John. Systematic Theology. (Chapter 19, “God’s Attributes: The Self-Contained God). Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2013.
• Geisler, Norman L. & Jason Jimenez. The Bible’s Answers To 100 Of Life’s Biggest Questions. (Chapter 4, “Who Made God?).  Grand Rapids: MI: Baker, 2015.
• Jones, Mark. God Is: A Devotional Guide to the Attributes of God. (Chapter 7, “God Is Independent”). Wheaton: IL: Crossway, 2017.
• Kinson, John M. Who Made God? An Ex-Atheist Scientist Investigates. Kindle Ebook.
• Sproul, R.C. Enjoying God. (Chapter 2, “Who Made You, God?”). Grand Rapids: MI: Baker, 2017.
• Tozer, A.W. The Knowledge of the Holy. (Chapter 6: The Self-sufficiency of God”).
• Wilkin, Jen. None Like Him. (Chapter 3: “Self-Existent”). Wheaton: IL: Crossway, 2017.