I was listening to a podcast by Jim Wallace from PleaseConvinceMe.com the other day on my way to work. He was talking about atheists’ stock objection to the cosmological arguments[1]: “Well, then, who caused God?”
Wallace pointed out that the question itself is meaningless. He illustrates his point by asking, What sound does silence make? Silence is soundless, of course, so it makes no sense to ask what kind of sound it makes. Likewise, the question, Who created God? is a meaningless question because by definition God is an eternal, uncreated being. To ask, Who caused God?, then, is to ask, Who caused the Uncreated Being to exist? which is meaningless.
For additional information on responding to the “Who made God?” objection, read my post “Inexcusable Ignorance Part II.”
[1]Which argue that the universe needs a cause, and that cause is God.
Thinking to Believe 
January 13, 2011 at 7:00 am
Jason,
It’s not a meaningless question. If you say that everything has a cause, therefore the first thing in the world had a cause, then God would also need a cause. You can exclude God as an exception (“all things except Zeus have a cause”) but that defeats the whole point of the argument. Once you concede that not everything has a cause, it fails.
Additionally, the question points out that appeals to God don’t add anything. If you don’t know something and you say “God did it,” you’re not answering anything, just shifting the problem back a step. It’s simpler to say that the universe has no cause and always existed, merely changing form in the Big Bang.
Arthur
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January 13, 2011 at 7:48 am
Arthur,
If I may interject. To say that would be to deny what scripture proclaims. If we deny what scripture proclaims about God then we deny the biblical God. The universe did have a cause but just because something created had a cause doesn’t mean that something not created needs a cause.
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January 13, 2011 at 9:58 am
Arthur,
If you are referring to theistic arguments, the argument is not that everything has a cause, but rather that everything that begins to exist has a cause. Why? Because things that begin to exist are contingent beings, and only contingent beings require a cause since they do not have being in themselves, but have to derive their being from an external source. God is defined as a self-existent, necessary being (not contingent(, and thus would have no cause by definition. If “God” = “uncreated, uncaused being” it makes no sense to ask what caused God for that is to ask what caused an uncaused being. Only someone who fails to understand what the concept of God entails could miss this.
I’m not sure I understand your point about appeals to God not adding anything. Could you elaborate?
You suggest that if one is wiling to say God did it (presumably creating the universe), then why not just say the universe is eternal and uncaused. The reason is twofold. First, the scientific and philosophical evidence is decidedly against the idea that the universe is eternal. The empirical evidence (2nd law of thermodynamics, expansion of the universe) demonstrates the temporally finite nature of the universe. And philosophically speaking, the existence of an actual infinite is impossible (such as an infinite number of past moments which would be required of an eternal universe).
Secondly, even if the universe was truly eternal, it would still require a cause since it is not metaphysically necessary. As the agnostic David Berlinski observed, “While an eternal universe makes it meaningless to ask when the universe began to exist, since its existence is not necessary it is still meaningful to ask why it exists.” As I understand it, even professional atheist philosophers consider it absurd to think the universe is metaphysically necessary, and for good reason: there is nothing about the universe that is logically or physically necessary. The macroscopic objects in the universe can’t be metaphysically necessary since they have not always existed. Perhaps the fundamental constituents of matter are metaphysically necessary. No, that can’t be because we would have to say quarks (or strings) cannot not exist. Not only must they exist, but they must exist in the precise number they do. But there is no reason to think the universe could not have been constituted by different materials, or have one more quark than it does. It’s even logically possible to conceive of a physically empty universe, or even no universe existing at all. There is no physical or logical law that requires the universe to exist. So everything points to the universe being contingent—even if it’s eternal—and thus it needs a causal explanation for its existence. So while it may be simpler to say the universe has no cause and always existed, such a claim cannot be substantiated philosophically or scientifically. Ockham’s Razor doesn’t require the simplest answer, but the simplest answer that is adequate to explain what needs to be explained.
Jason
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January 14, 2011 at 8:10 am
CS,
This isn’t about Scripture but about a “first cause” argument. Scripture can be true even if the argument fails.
Arthur
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January 14, 2011 at 8:25 am
Jason,
There is no need to distinguish between necesary and contingent things. Absolutely everything within the universe (no exceptions) appears to have a cause. There does not appear to be anything within the universe that always existed. The only purpose of adding an exception to the formulation is to cheat. The fact that everything we’ve encountered has a cause suggests that there are no exceptions.
There is no evidence that the universe (properly understood and defined) is not eternal. That is, there’s reason to believe there was “stuff” in existence prior to the Big Bang and time as we know it.
God as an explanation doesn’t explain anything. It simply refers to the magical or divine rather than providing knowledge of how something occurred. Science, by contrast, produces explanations that lead to further discoveries and new information. “God did it” might be true in a sense, but it doesn’t really add anything to those who want to understand lightning, earthquakes, etc.
Arthur
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January 14, 2011 at 11:41 am
Arthur
To say that God had a beginning would be unscriptural. Scripture declares that in the beginning God created. Since God was at the beginning scripturaly then there would be anything before Him.
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January 14, 2011 at 11:43 am
opps. wouldn’t instead of would.
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January 17, 2011 at 8:37 am
Do we have to have cause and effect understanding? Could it be that this too will become clear as we expand our spirituality, as we look inward to our soul? Just a thought.
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January 17, 2011 at 9:20 pm
What sound does silence make? Silence is soundless, of course, so it makes no sense to ask what kind of sound it makes.
I might just get nit-picky on this but isn’t sound technically in scientific terms an entity with sensori-input capabilities that can detect waves in the air, so just because something is silence doesn’t mean it makes no sense to ask what sound does it make because in some sense the vibrations can be picked up on a lower or higher spectrum (not sure about this, but the equalizer has something to do with this) but then again I do sound absurd with sound exists only because it is perceived arguement although metaphysically why does anything exist if it is not being perceived, for if it has no meaning or cause and effect in relation to another thing, then does it not render its own existence tantamount to nil..
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January 18, 2011 at 12:56 pm
Arthur,
Of course there is a need to distinguish between necessary and contingent things. By definition a necessary being is eternal and uncaused. So if we can identify some being as necessary, then the causal question of its origin no longer needs to be answered because it had no origin or cause. Are you really going to object to the definition of a necessary being, or deny that such a being is possible? Not even atheists would do as much.
You say the only reason to introduce an eternal entity into the equation is to cheat. Not at all. Indeed, you yourself said that “everything we’ve encountered has a cause suggests that there are no exceptions.” That being so, then the universe cannot be exempted either. It needs a cause. And given the nature of the universe (temporal, material, spatial), the cause of the universe must be non-temporal (eternal), immaterial, and non-spatial. Seeing that the cause must be eternal by definition, there is no reason to seek a cause for it. But even if we said eternal things need a cause, that would only invite an infinite regress, and yet we know that an infinite regress is philosophically impossible. So even if we said the cause of the universe needed a cause, ultimately we must arrive at a first cause that is itself uncaused to terminate the regress.
As for material stuff existing before the Big Bang, what evidence is there to believe that? You always talk about this as if it is some scientific fact, when it reality it is nothing more than speculation based on mathematical models with little or no empirical evidence. When it comes to science we need to distinguish between what scientists know by observation, what they think they know by inference from observation, what they claim to know based on their philosophy, and what they speculate about. Most cosmological models that appeal to a pre-Big bang history are nothing more than exercises in metaphysical cosmology and speculation. Besides, even those theories cannot avoid an absolute beginning of physical reality. At best they show that the Big Bang of our universe was not that beginning. But the absolute origin of physicality cannot be avoided.
As for saying God is not an explanation, this is absurd, particularly for a theist to say (assuming you really are one—which given how often you sound like and argue like an atheist, I’m not so sure anymore). The only way God could not be an explanation is if God was causally inert or uninvolved with the universe. But even the Deists wouldn’t go as far as you are going. At least they said God created the universe, but on your proposal we can’t even say God is an explanation for the origin of the universe! Apparently he either sat by idly surprised as it popped into being on its own, or he and the universe have been eternal roommates.
Clearly I don’t think we should appeal to God as the direct causal explanation for all phenomenon, but if the evidence points in that direction for some specific phenomenon, then God should be allowed as an explanation. You bring up the issue of the God answer not leading to further discoveries. This is partly true and partly false. It’s true that if God did it, there’s no reason to go on looking for a naturalistic cause (just like it would be silly to reject a human cause of Stonehenge on the basis that it would not lead to further discoveries about its origin). But it’s false that it would somehow stop further investigation. Knowing who caused X doesn’t tell you how they did so, or how X works now that it exists. There is plenty of questions to be answered after solving the origins question.
Jason
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January 18, 2011 at 12:59 pm
Sonic Vangall,
You seem to be confusing what sound is with the apparatus’s necessary to perceive sound. The point is that silence has no sound. If silence had a sound to it, then it would not be silence because silence, by definition, is the absence of any and all sounds. Silence cannot have a sound anymore than a bachelor can have a wife. If he had a wife, by definition he would not be a bachelor.
Jason
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January 19, 2011 at 3:19 pm
Jason,
I believe God created the universe. I just don’t believe this can be proved logically. It’s something that must be accepted on faith. Forgive me if I enjoy playing the devil’s advocate in these posts.
Arthur
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January 19, 2011 at 3:46 pm
Arthur,
Well, I can respect that. I just don’t agree. While theistic arguments are not logically airtight, they are much more likely than the alternatives. I don’t think the “well, perhaps something can pop into being from nothing” kind of responses do anything to detract from the cogency of the arguments. Possibility is not plausibility.
As for playing the devil’s advocate, I understand. I play him myself sometimes. Perhaps you can just let everyone know when you are playing the devil lest we think you are the devil. 🙂
Jason
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June 19, 2012 at 3:35 pm
[…] being, God never began to exist, and thus does not need a cause. Indeed, the question itself is nonsensical given the kind of being God […]
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July 10, 2012 at 10:14 am
[…] objection is meaningless because it is based on a misunderstanding of what is meant by […]
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February 17, 2014 at 5:01 pm
[…] addressing the “who made God” issue, especially with his first point – “The objection is meaningless because it is based on a misunderstanding of what is meant by ‘God.’” […]
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June 20, 2016 at 9:22 am
the easier explanation to this is that time is an aspect of our universe. To a monotheist, God created our universe with this aspect of time. Therefore, its invalid to ask who made God, because that is applying an aspect of the universe that God created to God.
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