Is Satan a real person? Was there a person who took Jesus to the high mountain and the pinnacle of the Temple? Or did Jesus take himself there in order to somehow be tempted by his own desires?
If there was no person who took Jesus up to the high mountain and tempted Jesus to worship him, then Jesus, by his own desires, was tempted to worship the personification of evil. Either that or the Gospel writers were just making this stuff up for dramatic effect.
Did Jesus even go to the pinnacle of the temple? Is that story just a fable? Did Jesus take himself up to the pinnacle of the temple because he had some inward desire to worship evil?
This is really weird stuff, kosta. Does your church agree with you on this stuff.
I have to say I think Satan is a real entity, not simply a personification.
On the surface probably not, I will have to look into this more. But in principle yes. The Church always speaks of ever-present evil, teaches that we must blame ourselves first. So, the concept is there. Our resistance of "passions" and even "passion foods" is the reason behind rigorous fasting (no animal products; we have three 40-day fasts, we also fast fast every Wednesday and Friday, and have several other minor fasts, some 14 days or less, all in all about 180 days total in a year) The goal is: defeating temptation (i.e. resisting evil) by choice.