Supernaturalism (Who made God?)

“Sir, I have a question. Who made God?” That’s what one of my boys asked me recently. This made me smile. For two reasons: 1.) I get that question at least once a year and 2.) I remember only too well how that question used to vex me as a young boy, and how disgruntled I was at the elusive way in which grown-ups always seemed to answer it.

Of course I now face the challenge of trying to answer that question without frustrating their sense of logic. Alas it is a hopeless cause. In a world full of beginnings and endings, how do I describe a being with no beginning and no end? Who made God indeed?! The simple answer is “no one made God”, and as grown ups, we’ve just learned to accept that.

I know what they’re thinking because I have thought it too, they're thinking, ‘That’s not possible! Nobody is allowed to be alive forever. That’s against the rules of our universe! The rules say everything must be born, and everything must die. Even God.’

So who made God? The sociologists and psychologists would have us believe that he is a construction of the mind. We made him to keep the fabric of our society intact, to “put the fear of God into us”, so to speak. So their answer to this question is: people made God.

Once again, the humanistic intelligentsia have merely kicked the can further down the road. Our existence demands a first cause. What was that first creative force? Something/someone must have been there right at the beginning. Everything we see came from something or someone that we do not see anymore. That something was not created, it could not be, it came first! Therefore something/Someone has always existed, forever. Like forever and ever…

This is against our rules. This is the first obviously supernatural element in our universe. It is completely beyond our spectrum of reference. On instinct I would like very much to put this indiscriminate rule-breaker right out of my mind. For it is an offence of the worst kind (unfortunately, this is exactly what most people do with the conundrum, they put it far out of their mind). He threatens to ruin our perfectly rational system. There is no place for immortals here. And yet… Here we are. Flesh and bone. Alive. Our very existence screams to be heard. We defy any ‘natural’ explanation. “Ignore me?!” says God. “Then deny your own mysterious appearance on life’s brief stage.”

Which got me to thinking… For us temperamental mortals, an immortal God is such a ridiculous prospect to wrap our brains around. We label God and all the invisible stuff “supernatural”. But how must things look from his angle? He would hardly call our realm “supernatural”, would he? How could it be, he made it?! To the immortal, creator God who speaks and worlds are created, what use would he have for the words: natural, unnatural or supernatural?

In fact, never has there been a man so flagrantly irresponsible with the laws that govern our ‘natural’ universe as Jesus. It was nothing for him to walk on a storm tossed ocean (he even took a friend along). Why kow-tow to the king of Babylon when you can walk through the flames of a raging furnace (he took three friends this time)? Why stay in your grave when your name is I AM?

Indeed, open the Great Book of History and you’ll find peculiar phenomena on every second page. It is not nearly as “normal” as it should be. You’ll find talking animals on the first few pages. Flip a few leaves and there’s a boat to preserve all the living creatures in the world. Read about talking God-men, sulphur and fire raining from the sky, a stairway to heaven, Jacob wrestling with an angel and you’re just about done reading the first book of the Bible!

When Jesus prayed he said, “Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” So if I want to go on living, I had better get in touch with my spiritual side. Not only does he create life, he sustains it by his word. I have recently been reminded that every breath is a gift. My first breath was a miracle, and every breath since then was no less. It’s only The One Who Has No Beginning who can give me life everlasting. 'Trusting for a miracle' is not a recent or abnormal part of my Christian walk. In order to exist I needed a miracle of creation, in order to be saved I needed the miracle of regeneration, and in order to enter heaven I need the miracle of resurrection. Welcome to life more than ordinary. I think I need an overhaul. Satan has a way of dressing this life as an ‘ordinary’ place where miracles are the stuff of myths and legends. In order to go where Jesus went I’ll need his reckless kind of faith, the kind that sees past the bread that I eat.