Why couldn't the devil cease the be the devil, like a gang ('s members) can cease to be a gang? Of course he wouldn't be the devil anymore, but that's fine by m

Why couldn't the devil cease the be the devil, like a gang ('s members) can cease to be a gang? Of course he wouldn't be the devil anymore, but that's fine by me. Just like the rain can stop. It doesn't stop being wet, the concept is not redefined, it just ceases being there. My point is that you are adding that characterization onto the concept, it does not logically follow from our definition of the concept, "the devil is the personification of evil", that it is evil by necessity. It might be that it is a being incapable to stop (no way for me to disprove it, unless someone can meet him; you can certainly write the story that way, or you can write it another way, with fallen angels or a Santa Clause) but it is perfectly imaginable that it could. Of course, it would stop being the devil as to the common definition. But nothing in the definition of the concept says that it doesn't have the agency to stop.