Deepak Kapur said:
I just want to say that it is somewhat contrary to logic to arrive at the origin of anything.
Nevertheless one thing is for sure - science will always be persistent in such efforts.
First cause is the logical inconsistency that creates an explanatory hole which needs filling.
God is some people's answer, but it is a mystical answer in that it does not offer any actual model of causality. So it is not a logical answer. There is no reason why, no chain of necessity or inevitability, involved.
You can say "god", but that does not say how. Although it would say who, what when and why - so not a complete non-answer I would have to concede. But then even that is a short-lived triumph as, as any skoolkid kno, the existence of god becomes itself demanding of a causal explanation. So then we are back to asking just not how, but who, what when and why did god's existence come to be a fact of reality?
Looking from the inside of reality, it then becomes more "logical" to just say there was no first cause - so either the universe simply sprang into existence in uncaused fashion, or it existed eternally and again exists for no causal reason.
The debate would end there - accepting existence as brute a-causal fact - except that there are other models of logic that permit the development of hierarchically-complex realities from vague initial conditions.
The metaphysician CS Peirce is a recent example of someone with a well-worked out scheme of this kind. Anaximander of Miletus was another, the earliest recorded example.
So, my argument is that if logic seems to fail you when it comes to first causes, look around for a larger model of logic, a larger model of causality.
You can resort to stuffing a god-shaped stuff in your first cause explanatory hole, or simply leave it a gaping hole. Or you can explore a logic based on self-organising development rather than mechanically cascading existence.
A logic of vagueness does not do away with all questions concerning existence, because in some sense, vagueness - the initial conditions - itself has to exist as a prior.
But it does shrink the notion of existence to its logical minimum. And that has to be some kind of better answer than the huge gaping explanatory hole left by a first causes, prime mover, style of logic.
Neither science, nor western religion, employ a logic of vagueness so it remains an unfamiliar option to most people. You have to study certain philosophers, theoretical biologists or systems scientists to hear about it.