When I was a pioneer I used to get the comment a lot, as i am sure most here have.
My stock answer was the analogy...
WT 2002 10/1 page 7 as an example
Imagine a father allowing his child to go thru a painful operation in-order to get better...hence why god permits suffering. Anyway I used to trot this out without any counter arguments.
Even when I left, it still seemed a reasonable explanations, then something clicked. This analogy is absolutely terrible ...reasons
First we set up the story as the child being mankind and the father being God, this is where the problem lies.
The father in the story is clearly not able to heal his child himself and permits his child to go to a doctor that is able to perform a operation to heal the child.
Well firstly God is able to heal his 'child' (mankind) if he wanted to.
Secondly the doctor is able to perform an operations but does his best to minimize the child pain and suffering with drugs and after care, How exactly does God (father) limited his child's ( mankind ) suffering, in no way what so ever.
So the argument that that as the WT puts its
Just as a loving father will allow his child to undergo a painful operation if he knows it will bring lasting benefits, so Jehovah has allowed humans to experience the temporary existence of evil on earth. Yet, an eternity of blessings awaits all who seek to do God’s will
Wrong wrong wrong. God has the ability that a father of the ill child doesn't , in fact if we retell the story with the father and child in proper character according to the way the WT describes the story goes like this.
The Father having the ability to heal the sick child and remove the suffering immediately (with or without conditions) chooses not to and instead permits the child to go to inferring counter part to ensure a painful operations with additional pain, to teach the child a lesson about imperfect his child really is. Then tells the child that he could feel him, but wanted to experience this pain to show how lower the child is.
If this happened in today society it amount to child abuse.
I sincerely hope the WT continue to use the analogy and hope that it is counted time and again with how redundant this analogy is.
Yes it was a rant, it is something that annoyed me that I used to just spout the crap that the WT issues to help its people on the doors, and the best they can come up with is this story for why God permits humans to suffer.. , Then the WT is extremely deluded, dumb, and are taking their followers as saps.
End of rant , and getting down of my soap box