Where Did God Come From?

Photo by Jonny Gios on Unsplash

People often ask, “Where Did God Come From?” and it’s a tricky question to answer, mainly because it assumes God had a starting point like everything else. As Christians, we believe that God is the one who created time, space, and matter; therefore, He exists outside of all three.

I like to explain that there has to be a first cause, something (or someone) that started everything. And from a biblical worldview, that first cause is God.

One of my favorite explanations to this question came from a debate between Dr. Kent Hovind and Reinhold Schlieter. Dr. Hovind gave a powerful answer to the question “Where did God come from?” that I think is worth sharing:

“Your question, ‘where did God come from’, displays that you're thinking of the wrong God because the God of the Bible is not affected by time, space, or matter.

If he's affected by time, space, or matter, he's not God. Time, space, and matter are what we call a continuum. All of them have to come into existence at the same instant. Because if there were matter but no space, where would you put it? If there were matter and space but no time, when would you put it? You cannot have time, space, or matter independently. They have to come into existence simultaneously.

The Bible answers that in ten words: In the beginning, there’s time, God created the heaven, there’s space, and the earth, there’s matter. There’s time, space, and matter, created as a trinity of trinities. Time has a trinity of past, present, and future. Space has length, width, and height. Matter exists in a trinity of solid, liquid, and gas.

You have a trinity of trinities created instantaneously, and the God who created them has to be outside of them. If He's limited by time, He's not God.

The God who created this computer is not in the computer. He's not running around in there changing the numbers on the screen, okay? The God who created this universe is outside of the universe. He's above it, beyond it, in it, through it. He's unaffected by it.

And the concept that a spiritual force cannot have any effect on a material body, well, then I guess you'd have to explain to me things like emotions, love, hatred, envy, jealousy, and rationality.

I mean, if your brain is just a random collection of chemicals that form by chance over billions of years, how on earth can you trust your own reasoning processes and the thoughts that you think?

So, your question, ‘where did God come from’, assumes a limited God, and that's your problem. The God that I worship is not limited by time, space, or matter.

If I could fit the infinite God in my three-pound brain, he would not be worth worshiping, that's for certain.

So that's the God that I worship. Thank you.”