A lot start with the deity(s) breathing or dreaming up the creation from scratch, animals created, man gets dominion over them, etc. There's really nothing original about the Christian one, except maybe the introduction of the concept of original sin.
Others are so alarmed by that prospect that they have descended into attempting to discredit Scripture by treating it as though it is a physics textbook.
No alarm necessary. If you claim it is the absolute literal truth, then expect it to be analyzed as such. If you see it non-literally or metaphorically, then there can be no conflict.
did he ever speculate on the question if something can be the cause of itself?
You mean like God? He always seems to get that special exemption to the logic.
But for what you're asking, he believed God caused the creation of the universe as science has later discovered it to be. Think "God created the heavens and the earth" = "big bang plus several billion years." He, like many other Christians, just didn't believe in the literal reading of Genesis.
How would you propose to understand the injunction not to steal, if not literally? Analyze that. Or, sticking with the issue of Genesis, how is one to regard, “In the Beginning”? For untold millennia, the Judeo-Christian tradition has understood that there was (is?) a beginning. Within the span of my own lifetime, Science seemed convinced that existence was in an eternal steady state. Thanks to Mr. Einstein and to the discovery of a cosmic background radiation, we have now come to understand that there was, indeed, a beginning.
But, the simple fact is that Hebrew, Greek, and English literary traditions, alike, all demand many levels of understanding when contemplating important literary works (certainly including Biblical tracts: 1) literal, 2) metaphorical, 3) allegorical, 4) doctrinal, 5) spiritual, 6) poetical, 7) story-telling (see, for example, I Cor 2:6-16). If one has the slimmest appreciation for Hebrew, Greek, and English literary traditions, then he can understand King James’ instructions to his biblical translators to create a new English publication of the Bible, the KJV, with the dual object to combine elegance of translation with faithfulness to the text (see In The Beginning, by Alister McGrath). Your “analysis” would reduce any such effort to the literalness of a recipe card or a lab report, dismissing anything else as “myth.”
I asked if your college astronomy teacher ever speculated on the question could something be the cause of itself? You responded by asking, “You mean like God? He always seems to get that special exemption to the logic.”
No. You’re confusing the philosophical issue of First Cause with the theory of Spontaneous Generation. Science has generally rejected the theory of Spontaneous Generation, as it pertains to the generation of life, as not plausible. Even less plausible, then, must be the theory of the Spontaneous Generation of everything. The Old Ones long ago concluded that an infinite regress of cause was not plausible, and therefore logically concluded the existence of a First Clause (Plato’s God of the Beyond).
Scientists thought they had solved the problem of First Cause by positing an eternal universe, but now that seems not a likely supposition. Your astronomy teacher seems to have solved his problem by embracing the Judeo-Christian tradition, but he then seems to reverse himself by rejecting Holy Scripture as “myth,” trusting rather in the revealed glories of existence (or do I attribute too many of your thoughts as his?).