Why did the big bang happen in the first place, and what, if anything, preceded it?
No one knows, and ‘precede’ has no meaning when talking about the creation of spacetime itself.
After looking at all your threads today, I’d really like to urge you to start using the search engine at this site. Virtually every one of your questions have been answered in other threads in the last month.
Penrose and Hawking proved that when the universe was a singularity, normal laws of physics didn’t apply. We have no means to do any research on that topic.
Actually it is no problem for me:
1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the ,waters.
1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.
And the evening and the morning were the first day.
1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
1:7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.