Romans 9:22
Romans 9:2222What if God, intending to show His wrath and make His power known, bore with great patience the vessels of His wrath, prepared for destruction?
Read as Jehovah's patience with the wicked — he tolerates them for a time so that his purpose can be worked out and his sovereignty vindicated, which is the shape of the Watchtower's permitted-issue teaching. "Made fit for destruction" is understood as describing what the vessels made of themselves, not what God made of them.
This verse is close to the heart of the Watchtower's own theodicy, and that is what makes it worth raising — not to win a debate about predestination but to show that the structure they already believe is in Paul. The Watchtower teaches that Jehovah foreknew the rebellion, foreknew what six thousand years of it would cost, and chose to tolerate it because doing so would settle the question of his right to rule more thoroughly than stopping it. Now read Paul: God, having the will to demonstrate his wrath and make his power known, tolerated with much patience vessels of wrath. Same shape — a purpose served by forbearance. So the question is not whether God works this way; both of you already think he does. The question is whether "permitted" is doing any work that "decreed" does not also do, once foreknowledge and the ability to prevent are granted. Keep this for a later conversation. Compare , , .