It's always been. So you can't have a period before there was matter, where there was a God, which didn't exist because there was no matter that created that matter that didn't exist. Jainists would say, where does the perfect God's intention come from to create a universe to be so perfect? Why is there a need to create a universe in the first place? A Jainist would say, there is no God. There are only souls. There's only matter.