In the beginning...

[Neo-Scholastic]

It has no origin.

Nothing like having an exception to the rule, in other words... a special pleading.

Actually, you're the one special pleading because you have made an exception for the physical universe. Every physical object with which we have experience has a beginning and persists and presumably ends. The coming into being of any physical object depends on something other than itself into order to begin and persist (which is just continual coming into being).

The known universe is a physical object, the same as all others. So even as a whole, the physical universe should not be treated differently than any other physical object. I avoid special pleading by posit the existence of necessary non-physical attributes. These two taken together, the physical and non-physical constitute the larger reality, which I call the Totality (because it is neutral with regards to divinity) or what the ancients called the One or the All or the Good.

Nice try, though. Attempting to pidgen-hole my position into something familiar that you think you can easily refute. I'm going to make you work for it.