The perplexing Question- Who created God?

How did the Universe begin? Who created the Creator?

-By Fadel Soliman

Question – I need an answer, for why the answer to the question ‘who created God’ never kills the question in my mind? The answer to this question satisfies me for a while then the question keeps coming back again to my mind.

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Defining the Primary Source

If we say that everything has a source, and that this source itself has a source, and if we keep up this pattern; each source consecutively coming from a previous source, then the pattern would carry on perpetually. Therefore, logically, this pattern must come to an end; or rather ‘a beginning’ it must reach a source that has no source. And that is what we call ‘the primary source’. The primary source must have existed before the beginning of time, because if it came to existence after the beginning of time, then that source itself must have had a beginning; that is, something must have preceded its existence. But rather, the primary source must have preceded time and -accordingly- space as well. Without the sun, the moon, the planets, and the stars, there would be no night or day; there would be no hours or months; so there would be no time. Therefore, time and space must have come into existence simultaneously. And that is what science has proven – that the Big Bang simultaneously gave rise to space and time. Therefore, this primary source must have existed prior to night and day, and prior to the sun, the moon, and the stars. In other words, it existed before time and space. This primary source is what created time and space.

The Quran says ‘And it is He who created the night and the day and the sun and the moon’ -Quran 21:33. Notice how apt the Quranic description is regarding the relationship between space and time. When the Quran says in 39:5- ‘He created the heavens and earth…’ It describes Space. And When it says: ‘in truth, He wraps the night over the day and wraps the day over the night…’ it refers to Time. It also describes time in the same verse: ‘…and has subjected the sun and the moon, each running [its course] for a specified term’.

So who Created God?

Therefore, the primary source; that which was not created, is the one who created the heavens and the earth and all that they comprise. He is God Almighty. If we ask, ‘Who is the creator of time?’, because He created the sun, the moon, and the stars, we say, ‘It is God’. If we ask, ‘Who is the creator of all that which the heavens and earth comprise?’ ‘It is God’. If we ask, ‘Who is the first; the origin?’ ‘Again, it is God’. Can we then ask, after all this, ‘Who created God?’ The answer is No, because he is the one who has created yet Himself was not created. If we say, ‘Who created him?’, then he is reduced to a creation – and is therefore not God. We must understand that there is a difference between the primary event and the primary cause. The primary event, according to science is the Big Bang, but the primary cause is the one who caused the big bang. The primary cause is the one who caused the primary event. And that is God.

Did Nature Create the Universe?

Classical Philosophers assigned certain characteristics to that cause, the primary cause: They said that it must have preceded time, space and energy in existence. Therefore, ‘nature’ cannot possibly be the creator of the universe, because ‘nature’ itself is time, space, and energy. Therefore, the cause must have existed before time, space and energy; it must, consequently be the first – the primary cause. It must also be omnipotent – In Quranic terms, this is expressed as ‘having power over all things’. Philosophers also said that it must be capable of making decisions, in order to have made the decision to start creation from nothing. They also said that it must have foresight, and must be omniscient. In Quranic terms, this is expressed as ‘He has perfect knowledge of all things’. And they said that it must be one. Because if this cause is perfect then it should not need any other cause with it. And that is the Creator.

So when someone asks, after all this, ‘Who created the first creator?’, then the question itself is invalid.

Who created the first Creator? – is an invalid Question.

Why is that we understand this answer, but yet are not a hundred percent satisfied with it? Why do we go back to asking the same question again? After feeling that we were ok with the answer which we heard just few hours ago? When I say that God is merciful, it is easy to comprehend, because you know a merciful person in your life whom you can use as a standard. When you hear the word ‘merciful’ you can instantly comprehend that concept because you’ve seen, in this life, mercy, perhaps from your mother, or even a cat tending to its kittens. Its not a foreign concept to you. Rather, mercy is a concept that is present in your life – a concept that you witness and experience, and therefore understand. The same applies if I tell you that God is forgiving. You will summon a mental image of someone whom you know to be forgiving, and who is not easily angered, and you will therefore have no difficulty grasping the concept because you have something or someone to refer to as a standard. But when I tell you that God was present prior to time and space – these words, and such a concept, is very difficult to fathom, because there is no experience or phenomenon similar to it in our minds or in our lives that we can use as a reference. Yet it is possible for us to understand this; I can make sense of it with my mind, although I cannot imagine it. That is the reason why the response to the question ‘Who created God?’ is not one hundred percent satisfying; because despite the fact that we can very well acknowledge it with our minds, we are incapable of imagining it, and therefore fully comprehending it. ‘Although we are able to understand the concept rationally with our minds, we can’t imagine it or conceptualize it / we can’t picture it in our mind’s eye’. Astrophysicists say that there are other dimensions in the universe. According to the M theory, there are about 11 dimensions. And although scientists ‘believe’ in these other dimensions, they cannot imagine what a 5 or 10 dimension world will look or be like. Their imagination can not fulfill what their minds understand.

Faith is a product of reasoning & understanding. Blind faith is not.

In order to clarify the difficulty in imagining something that one has not witnessed or experienced before, I like to give the example of a fetus inside its mother’s womb. Let us assume that, a mere two days prior to its birth, we were able to somehow communicate with it, and tell it that within a few days it will come out of this amniotic fluid that it’s been floating in for the past nine months, and that it will gain nourishment by eating from its mouth rather than through the umbilical cord that it has been using for the past nine months, and that it will meet a wonderful creature who’s going to take care of it – someone called Mom. It will not believe any of this. Why? Because it cannot possibly imagine any of it, even though it is the truth. It would certainly deny the existence of its mother, despite the fact that it is indeed inside of her.

In order for an answer to satisfy us one hundred percent, one must either be able to make sense of it as well as imagine it, or else faith must come into play and compensate for one’s inability to imagine in it terms of ones own personal experience, in other words to be able to relate directly to it. Therefore, the first trait of the believers, which is mentioned even before praying and before giving charity in the Quran, is those ‘who believe in the unseen’ Quran 2:3.

Example of blind faith- belief that Universe stemmed from nothing without a Creator.

It is the belief in the unseen, because faith stems from reasoning and understanding; it’s not blind faith. As for blind faith which is neither founded on judgment nor on imagination, we cannot accept it. An example of blind faith that is neither founded on judgment nor on imagination is belief that the universe stemmed from nothing without a creator. This is the religion of atheists, but this belief merely stands to counter the existence of God. That is what cannot be accepted, because it is a blind, unfounded faith. Our faith, on the other hand, stems from reasoning which establishes the existence of God as we will demonstrate in the coming episodes, God willing.

Click here for All Answers to Atheism

Courtesy- 

This article is a transcript of Islamophobia Season 2 Episode 3; Subscribe to Islamophobia Series by Fadel Soliman; bridges-foundation.org; Official website of Fadel Soliman fadelsoliman.com;