THE WATCHTOWER JANUARY 2014 Why Does God Allow Suffering?
By his words, Satan implied that Eve—and by extension, all humans—would be better off without God’s rulership. In this case too, Jehovah knew that the best way to address the challenge would be to let Satan try to prove his point. So God has allowed Satan to rule this world for a time.
And when did that occur, exactly, in the Bible?
God punished snakie in Genesis, condemning him to crawl. That can't be the beginning of God's handing over the reigns to Satan, since per the Xian eisegetical reading snakie was Satan, so God punished him. That's clearly not letting him "prove his point", it's punishing him for being clever (which is exactly how God made him to be, as the "cleverest beast of the field", per Genesis 3).
God kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden and posted that flaming sword: THAT'S not the beginning of Satan's rule, since God meddled.
God intervened on the matter of Cain v Abel by punishing Cain. That can't be the beginning of God allowing Satan a chance to rule the World as he sees fit and giving him a fair chance, since God violated non-interventionalist principles by butting in.
God intervened in the Flood, so that doesn't work. God intervened in the Tower of Babel episode, so that's not it. God destoryed Sodom and Gomorrah, so that doesn't work as Satan's judgment. Handing Mosaic Law is a HUGE violation of cheating by trying to intervene in the World, since it's not giving Satan a fair chance to rule without someone butting in, expressing his Divine Will constantly.
In fact, the REST of the Tanakh contain THOUSANDS of examples of God intervening into Satan's turn to rule, so that doesn't work.
The NT is EVEN WORSE: it contains examples of God cheating, since the whole idea of Jesus assuming mortal form is a MAJOR example of God's willingness to intervene into the World, sneaking loyal troops into the battlefield to try and intervene. Jesus chased out demons in others, formed a rag-tag band of apostles, died on the Cross (!), and believers who morphed into the Roman Catholic Church (!), so NONE of that work as a fair trial of non-intervention with Satan's turn to rule Earth.
So anyone who actually still believes in this "Universal Sovereignity" nonsense: WHEN DID IT OCCUR IN THE BIBLE?
If you believe it, then WHY IS GOD ALLOWED TO INTERFERE WITH SATAN'S TURN, not giving Satan a fair chance to rule?
Is someone afraid they'd lose, if Satan was given a fair trial?
WT SAID- That explains why we see so much suffering around us—it’s because Satan, not God, is the real ruler of the world. But there is good news…
Lemme see if I've got this heady concept:
God does the good stuff; Satan does the bad. M'kay....
OF COURSE, the Universal Sovereignty issue is used to explain God's lack of intervention on the question of natural evil, since God wouldn't want to do anything to allow the appearance of not giving Satan a fair chance....
Adam
