There is a Sunday-school-type lesson in Romans chapter 9 explaining precisely the control God has over humanity. This illustration is so simple and straightforward that an eight year-old can understand it. The problem is that it is so insulting to human pride and to the careful constructs of philosophy that hardly anyone believes it. In fact, may intelligent people actively deny it even while giving it lip service. I'm talking about the Potter and the Clay.

"To whom He will, He is merciful, yet whom He will, He is hardening.
You will be protesting to me, then, 'Why, then, is He still blaming? For who has withstood His intention?' O man! who are you, to be sure, who are answering again to God? That which is molded will not protest to the molder, 'Why do you make me thus?' Or has not the potter the right over the clay, out of the same kneading to make one vessel, indeed, for honor, yet one for dishonor?" (Romans 9:18-21).

God controls human beings in the same way a potter controls clay. It's that straightforward. It's that simple.

It's a metaphor. The objection, "But I'm not clay, I'm a human being!" betrays a lack of understanding of the metaphor. God knows we're human beings and not clay. But with the metaphor, God is revealing the secret that controlling humanity is, to Him, no different than a potter controlling clay. (The clay is a metaphor for humanity), and that humanity is just as inert as clay, unable to move or live or breathe or be (Acts 17:25, 28) apart from the continual application of God's enabling spirit (the Potter is a metaphor for God's enabling spirit).

Yet human beings, wishing to save some shred of sovereignty for themselves, reject this great truth. The majority of the race is offended that they should be controlled. It doesn't seem right to them. It doesn't seem fair to them. Shouldn't they be free to give something to God that He hasn't given them first? Isn't that the only thing that could impress God—their free giving? Can love for God possibly be love if God Himself provides the impulse to love?

Oh, the pride.

These are just some of the philosophical considerations held tightly to, like bags of money or precious jewels, by those who simply refuse to believe that  they are clay in the hands of the Potter and that God is, indeed, their all.