Having been immersed in the various concepts of causality in several university courses in Philosophy, I can say that it is largely a matter of careful phrasing of ideas that seem obvious once clarified.

There are several categories of cause with sub-categories in a couple. (you can look up the details). The one that is really at issue is "remote cause", which refers to the last item in the chain when searching, but the first item when defining.
If you have a Ford, certain events make up the causal chain, with 'material' causes and 'formal' causes present in the process... but one can refer to Henry Ford as one 'remote' cause. He would not be a 'first' cause, because he didn't invent the automobile, and didn't invent metallurgy, and didn't drill for oil...etc... so defining remote causes is a matter of deciding how far you wish to push it.

So.... what is at issue is the formal, philosophical question posed explicitly by Martin Heidegger, William James... and many others.

"Why is there something rather than nothing?"

We can trace various events and chemical & physical reactions ...and even ideas... with some sort of success, but so far, no scientific way has been found to answer "Why is there something rather than nothing?" We have tests in physics and astronomy that say that the oldest things we can measure are about 14 billion years old, but neither cosmologists or theologians can explain *what came before*.
Here it becomes a matter of who 'needs' an answer, and who is content to just muse on possible answers. Arcane concepts in physics and cosmology are becoming way too boggling for most of us.... like me. But I don't require an answer to something that may not BE answerable.
Those who MUST have an answer simply assert "God did it." and avoid all that math. This is not only convenient, but it creates an entire industry of 'explicating' what God must have thought, done, avoided, planned ...and demanded of His creations. There are thousands of variations on the theological model(s)... and it many ways it is more satisfying and comforting than just shrugging and saying "I dunno..".

My favorite saying about the situation is: "From false premises, anything follows!"... meaning, once you choose and assert premises that 'may' be true... but 'may' be false, you can easily construct any set of answers... and people have done that ever since they were advanced enough to think about it.

Why is there something rather than nothing? *shrug* I dunno...and neither do you!