Where Did God Come From?

The question of the origin of God has caused many people to scratch their chins in wonderment. Whether by the curious Christian or the antagonistic atheist, this question has been asked for centuries. To quote atheist Sam Harris, “If God created the universe, who created God?” And what was God doing before creation?

 

Saint Augustine, as far as we can tell, was the first person to formulate a doctrinal position on this. His answer was that God created time itself while He was creating the universe. The phrase that opens the Bible, “in the beginning,” speaks of the beginning of time. God was not doing anything before He created, because the concept of before didn’t exist. That is a time word, and God operates outside of time.

 

Thomas Aquinas built on this supposition, writing that every effect must have a cause, and nothing in the universe came into existence on its own. A was caused by B, and B was caused by C, and C was caused by D, ad infinitum. But if we follow this all the way back to the very beginning, there had to be something that caused the fist effect. This is often referred to as an uncaused first cause. 

 

If there is no Higher Power then we have to answer that question of origin somehow. What caused the appearance of the earliest particles? They couldn’t “just so happen” to exist. They need a first cause. 

 

If you believe in a Higher Power then the answer becomes much easier. God is the uncaused first cause. He existed before there was anything, and when He decided to do so, He created the universe. Part of Aquinas’ logic was that everything in a series has a cause, but that God is in a category all by Himself. We do not need to trace anything back further than God. In God we have the origin and source of everything else.

 

Dinesh D’Souza compared God to the author of a book. If we were to read something like Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, we want to know about the character’s back stories. When we follow Pip, or when we meet Mrs. Haversham, we want to know where they came from. But no one reads the book and demands to know where Dickens came from. As the author of the book, the characters come about as a matter of Dickens’ own will, but we do not need to grapple with the author’s origins. 

 

In a similar way, God, as the author of the universe, has brought about everything we see as a matter of His own will. Which is easier to believe: that a powerful God intentionally and intelligently created the world through His will, or that some unexplained particles accidentally created the world through chaos? 

 

“You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for you created all things, and by your will they exist and were created.”

Revelation 4:11

False Advertising

 

Helmut Thielicke was a German theologian and prolific author in the 1900s. He once told the story of a time when, as a college student, he was riding through town on his bicycle. Having skipped breakfast that morning, Thielicke was hungry as he pedaled his bike. When he saw a large sign in a store window that said “Hot Rolls for Sale,” he had to stop in. 

 

Thielicke said the sign made him realize how hungry he was, and as he parked and made his way to the store, his mouth was beginning to water in anticipation of filling his empty stomach. Once inside, it dawned on him that he was not in a bakery or diner at all, but had actually entered a print shop. The sign in the window was not advertising hot rolls; it was advertising the company’s ability to make signs.

 

Helmut was bitterly disappointed. He entered the store under false pretenses. The sign got his hopes up, but it did not deliver what he felt it promised. How many churches do that same thing every Sunday? There is a big sign out front that indicates it is a church, but once people go inside they discover it is anything but. The music is entertaining but it has nothing to do with the Lord. The message is well delivered but it isn’t based on the Bible. There might be great multimedia, interior decorating, and activities for the kids, but there is nothing of redemption or sanctification. 

 

To quote Erwin Lutzer in We Will not be Silenced, “Our churches may advertise the gospel, but once inside, you might find an extension of the culture around us…what you might not hear is a word from God. You might hear a lot about grace but nothing about sin; you might hear how to get blessed by God but nary a word about how to withstand the cultural pressures that are destroying our children and silencing our witness.”

 

Our churches must be churches, preaching the gospel and being the hands and feet of Jesus. But it starts with the individual church members being the people they are called to be. If you are expecting hot rolls, it is disappointing to wind up in a print shop. If you are expecting a New Testament church, it is disappointing to wind up in a shallow service. And when you meet someone who claims to be a Christian, it is disappointing to find out they are living like the world.

 

Proverbs 11:30 says, “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he who wins souls is wise.” It is refreshing to meet a Christian who lives out his faith, and when we live right, we are a tree of life to those who need it. We might not produce hot rolls, but we do produce fruit. Because each person has a God-shaped void in their life, they are looking for something, and we can provide it for them. No false advertising; we must live up to our name. 

 

El Shaddai

 

Many of us have heard messages on the names of God used in the Bible. One of the classic titles bestowed on God is El Shaddai, which is first seen in Genesis 17 where God introduces Himself to Abraham. Most English Bibles have translated El Shaddai as “God Almighty”— “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, ‘I am Almighty God; walk before me and be blameless (Genesis 17:1).’”

 

Almighty is a great word. Unfortunately, this translation causes us to miss out on what God was really trying to say about Himself. We often use this verse to speak on God’s omnipotence, to portray Him as a commanding military general able to save the day. There is a better title for that. Yahweh Sabaoth is translated as Lord of hosts or Lord of heaven’s armies, as in Psalm 24:10– “Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, He is the King of glory. Selah.” Shaddai definitely does have connotations of might and power (See Joel 1:15), but I don’t believe that is the main idea.

 

El Shaddai is not so much about God’s might and power as it is His power to supply our needs. Shaddai comes from the Hebrew root shad, which means breast (we see it so translated in Genesis 49:25, for example). Dr. Charles Parkhurst has written that Shaddai could be thought of as “The Breasted One,” and Dr. Herbert Lockyer agrees, saying that El Shaddai “supplies us with a delicate yet precious metaphor, seeing it presents God as the One who nourishes, supplies, and satisfies.” 

 

Continuing this thought, Dr. G. Campbell Morgan points out that the idea behind the use of Almighty to translate Shaddai was intended to highlight God as “the mighty One of resource and sufficiency.” He went on to say that Shaddai suggests “perfect supply and perfect comfort. We should reach the idea better by rendering [it] ‘God All Bountiful’ or ‘God All-Sufficient’…To gather sustenance and consolation from the bosom of God is to be made strong for all the pilgrimage.” Parkhurst has also translated Shaddai as the pourer forth of blessings. 

 

This makes sense in light of Naomi’s statement in Ruth 1:20-21. Her name meant “pleasant,” but she told everyone instead to call her “bitter” because, “The Almighty (Shaddai) has dealt bitterly with me.” In calling God Shaddai, she was emphasizing the fact that God was supposed to pour forth blessings, but in her estimation He had failed to do so. Just as she made a play on her own name, she made a play on God’s name. The supplier stopped supplying, so pleasant became bitter. 

 

El Shaddai, God Almighty, is a God of blessings. That is why Isaac invoked that name when blessing Jacob— “May God Almighty bless you, and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may be an assembly of peoples (Genesis 28:3).” Just as a child is dependent upon his mother to nurse him, children of God must never fail to reach up to heaven and ask our Father for His blessings, that He may nourish us for the pilgrimage that is this life.