Questions from six-year-olds: Who made God?
Questions from 6-year-olds are always the toughest, and the best! I received the follwing question on Facebook recently.
My 6yo daughter keeps asking "how did God come to be?" and "who made God?".
Here's my answer:
What great questions! Thanks for asking.
The short and simple answer is that God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) has always existed. There never was a time when God did not exist.
If that seems a bit like dodging the question, think about it like this: if we say something or someone made God, that simply pushes the question back to who made that thing, and then who made the thing that made that thing, etc. In the beginning, there must have been something. I suppose it is possible to imagine that in the beginning there was nothing, and then something came out of nothing, but the claim in the Bible is that in the beginning there was God, and God made everything. (see Genesis 1, or Psalm 104.)
Moreover, the Christian claim is not just that there was something in the beginning, but someone. Over Christmas we've been thinking about the opening verses of John's Gospel. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made." In these verses, "the Word" is God the Son, who is God together with the Father and the Holy Spirit. The Father, Son and Spirit worked together to create all things. This must mean that the Father, Son and Spirit were not themselves made; they always have been, and they have always been with each other.
This is good news for us in (at least) two ways!
Firstly, when we say God is love, we really mean it. God has always existed in a loving relationship of Father, Son and Spirit, even before he made the world. Therefore, love is God's very essence. There wasn't a time when God suddenly started loving. Rather, God IS love, and always has been.
Secondly, because God has no beginning, he has no ending. At this time when it's particularly important to hold onto the hope of eternal life, we can be confident that God is eternal, because he always is and always has been, so we can trust he always will be. That's why John goes on: "In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." The life/light of God is more powerful than darkness/death.
I hope this helps. Thanks for making me think!
Yours in Christ, Matt
PS We've had this song on the Sunday livestream a couple of times. It tries to answer the same question. It's by the same group whose songs I often use in school assemblies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiaXqNmuuNQ
PPS If you want something aimed at a slightly older age group (this one has gone down well with the youth group), try Glen Scrivener at http://three-two-one.org/watch/
