One of the most common questions posed in conversations about the existence of God is:
“If God created the universe, then who created God?”
At first glance, this might seem like a strong objection to theistic belief. It appears to challenge the coherence of believing in a Creator by turning the premise back on itself. However, upon deeper examination, the question misunderstands both what theists claim about God and the nature of causality itself.
A Clarification of Terms
Before addressing the objection, it’s important to clarify what is actually being claimed by most theists. It's not accurate to say simply, “God created everything,” as though God is included in that category of “everything.” This phrase, while often said casually, can give rise to unnecessary confusion.
What is typically meant is more precise:
“God created everything that began to exist.”
Or alternatively:
“God created all contingent reality,”
or,
“God created all external reality outside of Himself.”
In all of these formulations, it’s understood that God did not create Himself. He is not part of the created order but rather the necessary foundation for it. In classical theism, God is not a contingent being; He does not depend on anything else for His existence. Instead, He is seen as a necessary, eternal, and uncaused being.
Does the Question Follow?
So when someone asks, “Who created God?” after hearing “God created the universe,” it’s worth considering whether that question logically follows—only if one assumes that God is a contingent being like everything else in the universe. But if the definition being used for “God” is that He is the uncaused cause or necessary being, then the question becomes a misunderstanding of the claim.
It would be like asking, “What causes the uncaused cause?” The very concept excludes the idea of being created. So rather than being a refutation, the question is really a category error—it treats God as if He belongs in the same category as the created universe.
Is It Special Pleading?
Sometimes the response to this is: “But isn’t it special pleading to say that God doesn’t need a cause?”
Not necessarily. Special pleading occurs when someone arbitrarily exempts their claim from a principle that they apply to everything else, without justification. But in this case, the exemption is not arbitrary—it’s based on the nature of the entity being described.
Historically, theists have claimed that only things that begin to exist require a cause. If God is claimed to be eternal and uncreated, then it’s not inconsistent to say that God doesn’t require a cause. This is not about convenience—this is part of the definition of God in classical theism.
Historical Context: Universe vs. God
To understand this further, it helps to look at the history of this discussion.
For much of Western history, especially before the 20th century, many atheists and materialists believed the universe was eternal. It had no beginning and no end. This view held sway until the development of modern cosmology, particularly through the discovery of the expanding universe and evidence supporting the Big Bang theory. These discoveries strongly suggested that the universe had a beginning.
Prior to these developments, theists and atheists were both appealing to eternal entities: theists claimed that God was eternal and uncreated, while atheists often claimed that the universe itself was eternal and needed no creator. In those cases, it was common to hear that invoking God was unnecessary and that the universe simply “was.”
But once it became scientifically evident that the universe had a beginning, the burden of explanation shifted. If the universe began to exist, then it would be reasonable to ask what caused it. And when theists answered “God,” the counter-question became, “Then who caused God?”
Yet this is a reversal of the older view. It's not special pleading to say that a necessary, eternal God doesn’t need a cause—just as it wasn’t special pleading when atheists once said the eternal universe didn’t need a cause. The only difference now is that the universe is widely accepted to have had a beginning, while God, by definition, is still said to be eternal.
Conclusion
The question “Who created God?” may seem compelling at first, but it relies on a misunderstanding of the terms and categories involved in the discussion. If God is truly the uncreated Creator, the necessary being who grounds all other existence, then the question of who created Him doesn’t apply.
Rather than a loophole or evasion, this is a foundational part of classical theistic belief. The universe, being temporal and contingent, has a cause. God, being eternal and necessary, does not.
Understanding these distinctions helps us move past surface-level objections and get to the real philosophical discussion: What best explains why anything exists at all?