Who Created God

God has no need to have been created, since He exists either outside time (where cause and effect do not operate) or within multiple dimensions of time (such that there is no beginning of God's plane of time). Hence God is eternal, having never been created.

A number of skeptics ask this question. But God by definition is the uncreated creator of the universe, so the question Who created God? is illogical, just like To whom is the bachelor married?
So a more sophisticated questioner might ask: If the universe needs a cause, then why doesn't God need a cause? And if God doesn't need a cause, why should the universe need a cause? In reply, Christians should use the following reasoning:

1. Everything which has a beginning has a cause.
2. The universe has a beginning.
3. Therefore the universe has a cause.

Its important to stress the words in bold type. The universe requires a cause because it had a beginning, as will be shown below. God, unlike the universe, had no beginning, so doesn't need a cause. In addition, Einstein's general relativity, which has much experimental support, shows that time is linked to matter and space. So time itself would have begun along with matter and space.
Since God, by definition, is the creator of the whole universe, he is the creator of time. Therefore He is not limited by the time dimension He created, so has no beginning in time God is the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity (Isaiah 57:15). Therefore He doesn't have a cause.
In contrast, there is good evidence that the universe had a beginning. This can be shown from the Laws of Thermodynamics, the most fundamental laws of the physical sciences.

• 1st Law: The total amount of mass-energy in the universe is constant.
• 2nd Law: The amount of energy available for work is running out, or entropy is increasing to a maximum.

If the total amount of mass-energy is limited, and the amount of usable energy is decreasing, then the universe cannot have existed forever, otherwise it would already have exhausted all usable energy the heat death of the universe. For example, all radioactive atoms would have decayed, every part of the universe would be the same temperature, and no further work would be possible.
So the obvious corollary is that the universe began a finite time ago with a lot of usable energy, and is now running down.
Now, what if the questioner accepts that the universe had a beginning, but not that it needs a cause? But it is self-evident that things that begin have a cause no-one really denies it in his heart. All science and history would collapse if this law of cause and effect were denied. So would all law enforcement, if the police didn't think they needed to find a cause for a stabbed body or a burgled house.
Also, the universe cannot be self-caused nothing can create itself, because that would mean that it existed before it came into existence, which is a logical absurdity.

IN SUMMARY

• The universe (including time itself) can be shown to have had a beginning.
  
• It is unreasonable to believe something could begin to exist without a cause.
  
• The universe therefore requires a cause, just as Genesis 1:1 and Romans 1:20 teach.
  
• God, as creator of time, is outside of time. Since therefore He has no beginning in time, He has always existed, so doesn't need a cause.
  

OBJECTIONS

There are only two ways to refute an argument:

1. Show that it is logically invalid
   
2. Show that at least one of the premises is false.
   

Is the argument valid?

A valid argument is one where it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false. Note that validity does not depend on the truth of the premises, but on the form of the argument. The argument in this article is valid; it is of the same form as: All whales have backbones; Killer Whale is a whale; therefore Killer Whale has a backbone. So the only hope for the skeptic is to dispute one or both of the premises.

Are the premises true?

1. Does the universe have a beginning?

Oscillating universe ideas were popularized by atheists like the late Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov solely to avoid the notion of a beginning, with its implications of a Creator. But as shown above, the Laws of Thermodynamics undercut that argument. Even an oscillating universe cannot overcome those laws. Each one of the hypothetical cycles would exhaust more and more usable energy.
This means every cycle would be larger and longer than the previous one, so looking back in time there would be smaller and smaller cycles. So the multicycle model could have an infinite future, but can only have a finite past.
Also, there are many lines of evidence showing that there is far too little mass for gravity to stop expansion and allow cycling in the first place, i.e., the universe is open.
According to the best estimates (even granting old-earth assumptions), the universe still has only about half the mass needed for re-contraction. This includes the combined total of both luminous matter and non-luminous matter (found in galactic halos), as well as any possible contribution of neutrinos to total mass.
Some recent evidence for an open universe comes from the number of light-bending gravitational lenses in the sky. Also, analysis of Type Ia supernovae shows that the universes expansion rate is not slowing enough for a closed universe^.It seems there is only 40-80% of the required matter to cause a big crunch.
Incidentally, this low mass is also a major problem for the currently fashionable inflationary version of the big bang theory, as this predicts a mass density just on the threshold of collapse a flat universe.
Finally, no known mechanism would allow a bounce back after a hypothetical big crunch.⁷
As the late Professor Beatrice Tinsley of Yale explained, even though the mathematics say that the universe oscillates, There is no known physical mechanism to reverse a catastrophic big crunch.
Off the paper and into the real world of physics, those models start from the Big Bang, expand, collapse, and that's the end.

2. Denial of cause and effect

Some physicists assert that quantum mechanics violates this cause/effect principle and can produce something from nothing. For instance, Paul Davies writes:

spacetime could appear out of nothingness as a result of a quantum transition. Particles can appear out of nowhere without specific causation Yet the world of quantum mechanics routinely produces something out of nothing.

But this is a gross misapplication of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics never produces something out of nothing. Davies himself admitted on the previous page that his scenario should not be taken too seriously.
Theories that the universe is a quantum fluctuation must presuppose that there was something to fluctuate their quantum vacuum is a lot of matter-antimatter potential not nothing.
Also, I have plenty of theoretical and practical experience at quantum mechanics (QM) from my doctoral thesis work. For example, Raman spectroscopy is a QM phenomenon, but from the wavenumber and intensity of the spectral bands, we can work out the masses of the atoms and force constants of the bonds causing the bands. To help the atheist position that the universe came into existence without a cause, one would need to find Raman bands appearing without being caused by transitions in vibrational quantum states, or alpha particles appearing without pre-existing nuclei, etc.
If QM was as acausal as some people think, then we should not assume that these phenomena have a cause. Then I may as well burn my Ph.D. thesis, and all the spectroscopy journals should quit, as should any nuclear physics research.
Also, if there is no cause, there is no explanation why this particular universe appeared at a particular time, nor why it was a universe and not, say, a banana or cat which appeared. This universe can't have any properties to explain its preferential coming into existence, because it wouldn't have any properties until it actually came into existence.

Is creation by God rational?

A last desperate tactic by skeptics to avoid a theistic conclusion is to assert that creation in time is incoherent. Davies correctly points out that since time itself began with the beginning of the universe, it is meaningless to talk about what happened before the universe began. But he claims that causes must precede their effects. So if nothing happened before the universe began, then (according to Davies) it is meaningless to discuss the cause of the universes beginning.
But the philosopher (and New Testament scholar) William Lane Craig, in a useful critique of Davies,¹⁰ pointed out that Davies is deficient in philosophical knowledge. Philosophers have long discussed the notion of simultaneous causation. Immanuel Kant (17241804) gave the example of a weight resting on a cushion simultaneously causing a depression in it. Craig says:

The first moment of time is the moment of God's creative act and of creation's simultaneous coming to be.

Some skeptics claim that all this analysis is tentative, because that is the nature of science. So this cant be used to prove creation by God. Of course, skeptics can't have it both ways: saying that the Bible is wrong because science has proved it so, but if science appears consistent with the Bible, then well, science is tentative anyway.

This question, Who Created God, is logically problematic.  If everything needs a creator, than no matter what exists, it must have been created.  Furthermore, to be created means that someone or something had to create it.  But then, who created the creator and so on?  Logically, this would mean there would be an infinite regression of creators (prior causes), and we would never be able to find the first uncaused cause, since by definition (the question says that "everything needs a creator") there wouldn't be any uncaused cause.  This would mean that the sequence of creations is eternal.  But, if it exists that there is an eternal regression of creators, then who created the infinite regression of creators?  Remember, the question presupposes that all things need a creator -- even the eternal sequence of creators -- which becomes logically absurd.  Furthermore, if there is an eternal regression of creators that are eternal, then the question is not answered.  In fact, it cannot be answered, since its weakness is that "all things need a creator."  Of course, this only begs the question in that how did the process begin?  Therefore, the question only raises the same problem it asks, and it is a question that, by its own design, cannot be answered.  Therefore, it is invalid.
The question is better phrased as a statement: "Everything that has come into existence was brought into existence by something else."  This is a more logical statement and is not wrought with the difficulties of the initial question.  In the revised statement, "Everything that has come into existence" implies that the thing that "has come into existence" did not already exist.  If it did not already exist but then came into existence, then something had to bring it into existence, because something that does not exist cannot bring itself into existence (a logical absolute).  This pushes the regression of creators back to what we would call the theoretical "uncaused cause" since there cannot be an infinite regression of creators as discussed above; and since an infinite number of creators would mean there was an infinite number of creations and created things, including things that cannot be destroyed since they would constitute things that exist.  If that is so, then the universe would have had an infinite number of created things in it, and it would be full.  But it is not full.  Therefore, there has not been an infinite regression of creations.
By definition, the Christian God never came into existence; that is, He is the uncaused cause (Psalm 90:2).  He was always in existence and He is the one who created space, time, and matter.  This means that the Christian God is the uncaused cause, and is the ultimate creator.  This eliminates the infinite regression problem.
Some may ask, "But who created God?"  The answer is that by definition He is not created; He is eternal.  He is the One who brought time, space, and matter into existence.  Since the concept of causality deals with space, time, and matter, and since God is the one who brought space, time, and matter into existence, the concept of causality does not apply to God since it is something related to the reality of space, time, and matter.  Since God is before space, time, and matter, the issue of causality does not apply to Him.

Although it is possible that the universe itself is eternal, eliminating the need for its creation, observational evidence contradicts this hypothesis, since the universe began to exist a finite ~13.7 billion years ago. The only possible escape for the atheist is the invention of a kind of super universe, which can never be confirmed experimentally (hence it is metaphysical in nature, and not scientific).