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The fall of the devil poses the problem of how to explain the very first sin, the initial act by which evil comes to mar God's wholly good creation. On the traditional Christian account, Satan and the other angels were created completely good, in an environment that was completely good, and with intellects and wills that functioned exactly as designed by God. Nevertheless, Satan rebelled against God, an act so grave that he was justly condemned to Hell, where he suffers the torment of eternal separation from his creator. What can account for such an inexplicable choice? Given Satan's pre-fallen cognitive and volitional strengths, his sinful choice seems utterly perverse: an act of existential self-harm heightened to an almost infinite degree.
Though less frequently addressed, the problem of the first sin poses a challenge to traditional Christian theism that is no less grave than more widely discussed problems like the general problem of evil, the problem of divine hiddenness, the problem of other religions, and so forth. If we are forced to admit that God is responsible for the first sin, then God cannot be perfectly good. Alternatively, if we can only explain the first sin by positing some unintended defect in the created intellect or will, or some unintended source of evil that already infects creation, then God no longer seems like a sovereign, all-powerful, creator.
It is easy to misunderstand the precise nature of the problem, and so it is easy to embrace various proposals that initially seem like solutions but really are not. One might think that the problem of the first sin is merely another instance of the problem of evil. That is, one might suppose that the question at hand is simply 'Why would God allow the devil to sin?' But the problem of the first sin requires us to justify Satan's choices, not God's. The relevant question is why Satan would choose to sin, not why God would allow him to sin. Christians traditionally explain the devil's sin by appealing to his pride, and to the ancient commonplace that Satan - and later Adam - fell because he loved himself more than God. Yet this suggestion, however venerable, merely redescribes the problem. Granting that Satan disobeyed God...