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Your description is of Rome and not Protestants who believe Christ paid the penalty for our sins to God and certainly not to Satan

smvoice is not Catholic as far as I know. In 1558 he denies it, but in 15414 he writes:

Satan had kidnapped man and made him a slave to sin and a subject of eternal death. That is how we were held ransom by him. God decided that through the atonement and the substitution of an innocent victim to take the place of the guilty kidnapped race He would free it from Satan, legally evicting him, and restoring man's dominion...Christ's death on our behalf paid our ransom in full, and Satan had no more claim on us

I am including smvocie on the ping list only out of courtesy since his/her screen name is being mentioned, but we are not communicating by his/her own decision.

As I said, Protestants believe many things. Your Westminnster Confession is a traditon of men, and many a Protestat does not subscribe to it.

smvoice is correct. Satan holds all men in bondage unless and until Christ frees them by paying the ransom for their sins to satisfy the perfect judgment of God.

That's what the Bible teaches. That's what the WCF teaches. That's what New Advent teaches.

The conundrum you're experiencing is answered by the fact that Satan was created by God and does not work with impunity. Rather, "all things" work according to the purpose of God. Therefore Satan tempts, but it is God who frees men from this temptation.

"With him is strength and wisdom: the deceived and the deceiver are his." -- Job 12:16

Agnostics ask "why did this God whom I don't even believe in set things up this way?"

Christians answer: for His glory and His good pleasure and the welfare of His family.

Somehow you take exception to this. Who do you think Christ pays the ransom to? Who is Christ beholden to?