[Alex Murphy]

The allegory of potter and clay speaks of hardening of the pot, but it does not make the potter resist the good, it makes the pot able to resist and actually resisting, due to hardness (not an evil quality in a pot). Despite the clay allegory, which superficially seems to support your notion of man as robot, God the Potter is said to endure "with much patience vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction". If men are pots, they are pots able to test the potter.

Read verse 19 again. If your reading was correct, Paul wouldn't have asked the question.

[annalex]

19 Thou wilt say therefore to me: Why doth he then find fault? For who resisteth his will?

It is St. Paul's rhetorical opponent asking the question: -- if God directly caused the evil act, why does He then condemn the actor? Paul gives the answer:

22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction,
23 That he might shew the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he hath prepared unto glory?

God did not make the Jews reject Christ, he mercifully endured their rejection.