There could be no such thing as a first event, looked at from a strictly physical perspective. If things had to begin ... (a big bang?) the question is, "Why only then, why not earlier?" The answer has to be: "Conditions were not yet right." What was it for "conditions to become right"? Something had to happen first (i.e., before the big bang). Thus there is always an event presupposed by any posited "first event." The big bang, even if it is science and not mere "literary conception," is only an interesting event. 
--Lawrence Dewan, "Big Bang, If There Was One, Was No Big Deal," New York Times, 7 May 1990