No; according to Luke, the devil claimed to have authority over all the world’s kingdoms. And he is, as we know, the father of lies.
The governments of this world routinely argue for the destruction of unborn children, in many cases encourage the persecution of Christians, advocate the rights of pornographers etc, often promote injustice, some are corrupt, spend far more on the military than on helping others, routinely go to war, and so on. Your own nation, the US, permitted slavery not all that long ago.
Where would you say this comes from … God?
Even though the English version does say “hell”, it is not what is written in Greek. The Greek says “zofou” and “tartaråsas”
Eleven of the twelve references to “Gehenna”, a place where the fires never went out, were stated by Christ.
And do please note the captivity of the situation. So even if your interpretation was correct, and it meant “hell”,
Prisons are places of captivity. But even in prison you will find a pecking order. There will be the untouchables, men with others who support them in their ruthlessness. I would assume Hell would have a similar hierarchy, with captive human souls at the bottom.
Who are going to be the warders in this spiritual prison? Good angels, having to suffocate in an atmosphere of absolute evil? I don’t think so. It would be a prison where the inmates are their own jailers, and absolutely depraved.
God ALLOWS evil and suffering to exist - that is NOT the same as saying that he WILLS it.
If there’s a war going on and if I’ve got the power to step in and stop it, but refuse to do so despite the immense cruelty and suffering, by claiming it serves my purpose, what’s the difference? Particularly if I knew and expected it to happen, and even planned for it to happen.
And it flies completely in the face of Scripture, which clearly emphasizes that God does not tempt anyone.
Satan was not created evil.
No, but God knew he would fall. And God definitely **allowed **Satan to tempt the original parents in the Garden of Eden, knowing full well the consequences if they fell. And we don’t know how long God allowed this to occur. Otherwise you’ve got a God who doesn’t know what is going on right under His nose.
Calvin said some real baloney from time to time (Luther did too, btw). Something isn’t necessarily true simply because Calvin said it.
Ditto for Luther. Luther said a lot of baloney. Heaps of it. He had a reputation for being foul mouthed. Read up on some of the stuff he said about women for example. I’ll refer you to a booklet, “Martin Luther - Adolf Hitler’s Spiritual Ancestor” by Peter Wiener.
Link provided.
tentmaker.org/books/MartinLuther-HitlersSpiritualAncestor.html
I would, however, also like to have the context in which Calvin said that. Context is all-important.
From the “Institutes” (lifted off the web) …
“We, therefore, hold that there are two methods in which God may so act. When his light is taken away, nothing remains but blindness and darkness: when his Spirit is taken away, our hearts become hard as stones: when his guidance is withdrawn, we immediately turn from the right path: and hence he is properly said to incline, harden, and blind those whom he deprives of the faculty of seeing, obeying, and rightly executing. The second method, which comes much nearer to the exact meaning of the words, is when executing his judgments by Satan as the minister of his anger, God both directs men’s counsels, and excites their wills, and regulates their efforts as he pleases.”
Hell IS the final place of punishment for satan, his demons, and the unbelievers. There IS no difference.
The stories explain their experiences in Hell and then they concentrate on how and if it created a spiritual conversion within them.