The notion that science does not concern itself with first causes — that it leaves the field to theology or metaphysics, and confines itself to mere effects — this notion has no support in the plain facts. If it could, science would explain the origin of life on earth at once–and there is every reason to believe that it will do so on some not too remote tomorrow. To argue that gaps in knowledge which will confront the seeker must be filled, not by patient inquiry, but by intuition or revelation, is simply to give ignorance a gratuitous and preposterous dignity….
— H. L. Mencken, 1930
But Science doesn’t really try to explain first causes. Because it can’t. It’s like trying to answer the question “If God created the Universe, then where did God come from?”
Science explains this by merely stating thtat the Universe began with the Big Bang. It doesn’t even attempt to explain where all of the gases and matter in the Universe came from to START the Big Bang.
Well, in either case, the assumption is that something, at some point, had to come from nothing. Be that something God, a giant mass of rock and chemicals, or some other, rarely theorized third thing.
Theism, of course, lacks the requirement of explaining where it all came from, which is a strength in this area, but it also allows a certain amount of laziness. Since the theistic version is that everything came from God, asking the logical question (“Where did God come from”) can just be answered by putting on a spooky/ethereal voice and saying, “Nobody knows.”