If everything needs a cause, who created God?

Why people ask this

This is one of the first questions children ask about God, and it is a good one. Philosophers ask it too. Richard Dawkins pressed a version of it in The God Delusion: a God capable of designing a universe would have to be even more complex than the universe, so he would need an explanation of his own. If we're honest, it does feel like a trick to say "everything needs a cause, except the thing I like."

What the arguments actually claim

The key is that the classic arguments do not say "everything needs a cause." That version would indeed include God. The Kalam cosmological argument says that whatever begins to exist has a cause. The universe, according to most evidence, began to exist. God, as classical theism understands him, did not begin. He is eternal.

Other versions, going back to Thomas Aquinas and Gottfried Leibniz, argue from contingency: things that could have failed to exist need an explanation outside themselves. God is defined as a necessary being, one who exists by the necessity of his own nature. You can disagree that such a being exists, but asking "who caused the uncaused cause?" is a bit like asking "who is the bachelor's wife?" The question misunderstands the concept.

Isn't that special pleading?

It would be special pleading if the exception were arbitrary. But it isn't. Something has to be the end of the explanatory chain, or there is no explanation at all. Atheists and theists both accept that. Some atheists say the universe itself, or a multiverse, is the brute, uncaused starting point. Theists say it is God. So the real question is not whether something is uncaused but which candidate makes the most sense.

Here the evidence matters. A universe that had a beginning, as the expansion of the universe and the second law of thermodynamics suggest, is a poor candidate for an eternal, uncaused reality. That is why many argue the cause must be beyond space and time (see Maybe the universe is eternal).

What about complexity?

Dawkins's point is that a designer would be more complex and so less likely. But classical theists have long held that God is simple, without physical parts. A mind is not complex in the way a machine is. And in science, we often accept an explanation without first explaining the explanation. An archaeologist who finds arrowheads can conclude that people made them without knowing who made the people.

A fair concession

There is genuine mystery here. Nobody can picture what it means for something to exist without a beginning. But that is true of every option, including an eternal universe or an infinite multiverse. The mystery doesn't go away by rejecting God; it just moves somewhere else.

The bottom line

"Who created God?" is a natural question, but it targets a version of the argument nobody serious defends. The real arguments say what begins to exist, or what could have failed to exist, needs a cause. God, by definition, is neither. The live question is whether the universe or God is the better stopping point, and that is worth exploring on the Is there a God? page.