When I wrote that the unbelieving Materialist has no answer to the question, “What caused the Big Bang?”. I was greeted with this counter question by someone who signed off as KIA, “Who or what caused your God?” It is a valid inquiry.
The short answer is this. No one and nothing created or caused God for there is none besides Him. God is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. He is eternally self-sufficient and self-existing.
Of course, God did not create Himself for that would violate the Law of Non-contradiction. Something cannot be and be at the same time.
But God can be, and is, self-existent. The idea of somebody or something being self-created is a logical absurdity for out of nothing, nothing comes. The idea of somebody or something being self-existence is a rational possibly. There is nothing illogical about the idea of a Being that is not caused.
Not everything must have a cause. However, everything that is an effect must have a cause. The universe is an effect, therefore, it must have a cause.
It is often argued that God too must have a cause, according to the Law of Causality. The response is, “No. The Law of Causality demands that every effect must have a cause.” So again, the idea of an Uncaused Being, something that exists in, and of itself, from all eternity, is not an irrational thought.
Of course such an entity does not of necessity exist just because we can conceive of it, any more than a unicorn must exist of necessity, or a jackrabbit with horns must exist because the mind can conceive of such a thing. What is important is that the mind can conceive of an idea of a self-existing, eternal being, without violating rational thought.
Rationality allows for self-existence, while it does not allow for the possibility of self-creation. It is also true that the mind can rationally conceive of the possibility that nothing exists now, and nothing ever existed.
However, once we take that first step, and say, that, if something exists, then that changes everything. If something exists, then the idea of a self-existence being becomes not only a rational possibility, but a rational necessity.
The idea of self-existence, aseity, has the power of being in, and of itself. It does not gain anything from something antecedent to itself. There was never a time when a self-existence being did not exist. When St. Thomas Aquinas argued for the existence of God, he argued from “ens necessarium”, or, “that Being whose being is necessary.” There are two distinct ways in which God is described as a necessary being.
First, God is necessary by virtue of rationality. If anything exists, the existence of God is rationally necessary. If something exists now, reason demands we come to the conclusion that something has always existed. Something has always had the power of being within itself, or we cannot account for the universe.
If ever there was a time when there was absolutely nothing, than out of nothing, nothing would have come. There would be nothing now. Something cannot create itself, by itself. That thought is a rational impossibility. That thought is an absurdity. There must be something that has the power within itself, and has always been there. Reason demands the existence of a self-existence eternal being.
The criticism against Judeo-Christian thinking is the idea of creation, and the idea of a Creator. If creation can be rationally explained without God, if the Creator can be eliminated, then the whole concept of God collapses.
It is argued, that if you want to be rational, and scientific, then you have to believe in a universe without God. The Christian insists that presuppositional thought is in itself irrational. If you want to believe in a rational universe that has symmetry, and order, then you must, of necessity, believe in God. The alternative to fully body theism is total irrationalism that manifests itself in logical absurdity. Reason demands there be a necessary Being.
Second, God is necessary by reason of ontological necessity. Ontology is the study, or science, of being. To say that God is ontological necessary, is to say He exists by the necessity of His own being. God does not exist because reason says He has to exist. God exists of necessity because He has the power of being in Himself. This Being cannot, not be. This is the difference between man and God.
God is the Supreme Being, and we are human beings. The difference between the Supreme Being and the human being is being. My existence is a creaturely existence. My life, and all that I am, is dependent on what I derive from the Supreme Being. I cannot sustain myself forever. There was a time when I was not. There will be a time when I am not in the form I am in now. I will die. I am dependent upon air, water, and a heartbeat, to continue in my present state. All of my life is change, and dependency, which is the primary ingredient of being a creature.
That which has self-existence, eternal being, is changeless, because it is never losing any of the power of its being, nor is it gaining anything, because it is what it is, eternally. It does not borrow, or add anything to itself. It has being itself, within its own power. God is ontologically necessary, He cannot help to be. Pure Being is dependent upon nothing to continue to exist, or for its origin of existence. It is not in “a state of becoming”, as Plato postulated, but is in a state of pure Being. Pure Being cannot, not be.
The idea of God being necessary by reason of ontological necessity is the link to Biblical revelation, for this is how God revealed Himself to Moses. “And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? What shall I say unto them? 14 And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.15 And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations” (Ex. 3:13).
God gave to Moses His sacred name, Yahweh; I Am. God did not say “I Am in the State of Becoming”, or “I Will Be”, but “I Am”. The Lord uses the verb, “to be”, in the present tense. God is eternally present, and eternally unchanging, without whose being nothing could possibly be. No one created God. He is the Creator of all that is, including the one who questions His existence.
The gospel calls upon the unbelieving Materialist, and all men everywhere, to repent and bow before their Lord and their God.
