Basically, by Paul's logic, I should be allowed to buy an animal and maim and torture it because it's my property and I own it.
Romans 9:22-23
22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory—
If you were a father of two boys, would you beat one of them with a belt until they pass out in order to show the other one how much you love him?
I don't get it anymore.
The passage has some context doesn't it?
It starts with this
I am speaking the truth in Christ; I am not lying. My conscience offers testimony to me in the Holy Spirit, because the sadness within me is great, and there is a continuous sorrow in my heart. For I was desiring that I myself might be anathemized from Christ, for the sake of my brothers, who are my kinsmen according to the flesh.
Romans 9:1-3
So, saint Paul is expressing his feeling of sadness for Israel in his day because the majority have just rejected the Lord, Jesus Christ.
Next saint Paul reasons about what it means to be an Israelite, according to the promise rather than by birth.
Theirs are the fathers, and from them, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is over all things, blessed God, for all eternity. Amen. But it is not that the Word of God has perished. For not all those who are Israelites are of Israel. And not all sons are the offspring of Abraham: "For your offspring will be invoked in Isaac." In other words, those who are the sons of God are not those who are sons of the flesh, but those who are sons of the Promise; these are considered to be the offspring.
Romans 9:5-8
Saint Paul next looks at an earlier example, that of Isaac and his sons, Jacob and Esau, where one is chosen by God and the other rejected
For this is the wording of the promise, About this time I shall return and Sarah will have a son. And not only that, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one husband, our father Isaac-- before they had yet been born or had done anything, good or bad, in order that God's elective plan might continue, not by works but by his call--she was told, The older shall serve the younger. As it is written: I loved Jacob but hated Esau.
Romans 9:9-13
Where does that quote come from, the "I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau.", part?
It comes from Malachi 1:2-3. Nearly verbatim from LXX
Here the prophet is appealing, in God’s name, to the people to remember His distinguishing and unmerited choice of Jacob over Esau to inherit the land. Not the quotation merely, but the context, is to the purpose here. (The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges)
It's interesting that Malachi uses such language and that saint Paul chooses to quote it. What is Paul's intention? Not so much to teach that God hated Esau from before he was born. That eventually comes out in Esau's descendants' behaviour towards Israel (Jacob's descendants). But at the time of their birth there was no hate expressed and no action worthy of hatred yet existed. But, saint Paul wants to point out that God's purposes are set in motion long before the reasons for them are evidenced by actions on the part of the forefathers of the nations that Malachi is writing about under the names Jacob and Esau.
Saint Paul explains
What should we say next? Is there unfairness with God? Let it not be so! For to Moses he says: "I will pity whomever I pity. And I will offer mercy to whomever I will pity." Therefore, it is not based on those who choose, nor on those who excel, but on God who takes pity. For Scripture says to the Pharaoh: "I have raised you up for this purpose, so that I may reveal my power by you, and so that my name may be announced to all the earth." Therefore, he takes pity on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
Romans 9:14-18
In the case of Egypt and Pharaoh God took pity on Israel enslaved in Egypt and by various signs and one terrible punishment God sets Israel free from Egyptian slavery, yet the Pharaoh of that time was unwilling to let God's people go and that Pharaoh led many of his people to death.
And now we reach the verses that you pointed to.
And so, you would say to me: "Then why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?" O man, who are you to question God? How can the thing that has been formed say to the One who formed him: "Why have you made me this way?" And does not the potter have the authority over the clay to make, from the same material, indeed, one vessel unto honour, yet truly another unto disgrace? What if God, wanting to reveal his wrath and to make his power known, endured, with much patience, vessels deserving wrath, fit to be destroyed, so that he might reveal the wealth of his glory, within these vessels of mercy, which he has prepared unto glory? And so it is with those of us whom he has also called, not only from among the Jews, but even from among the Gentiles, just as he says in Hosea: "I will call those who were not my people, "my people," and she who was not beloved, "beloved," and she who had not obtained mercy, "one who has obtained mercy." And this shall be: in the place where it was said to them, "You are not my people," there they shall be called the sons of the living God." And Isaiah cried out on behalf of Israel: "When the number of the sons of Israel is like the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved. For he shall complete his word, while abbreviating it out of equity. For the Lord shall accomplish a brief word upon the earth." And it is just as Isaiah predicted: "Unless the Lord of hosts had bequeathed offspring, we would have become like Sodom, and we would have been made similar to Gomorrah."
Romans 9:19-29
Here I think that the commentary I quoted from earlier is helpful. It says
St Paul is still, as so often before, writing as if an opponent were at his side. How vividly this suggests that he had himself experienced the conflicts of thought which indeed every earnest mind more or less encounters! But conflicts do not always end in further doubts. Difficulties, often most distressing ones, must meet us in any theory of religion that is not merely evolved from our own likings; and difficulties are not necessarily impossibilities. At one point or another we must be prepared to submit to fact and mystery.
Saint Paul isn't propounding the system of Calvin's theology here, he is presenting the mystery of God's salvation as it is experienced by Israel and the gentiles in saint Pau's day. Some of his brethren in the nation of Israel have rejected Christ now, when Paul is writing, and he grieves for that loss but he knows it is so and he is willing to accept it on faith. He believes that with time the reasons for God's mysterious choice now (in his day) will unfold just as happened with Jacob and Esau and later with Israel and Egypt.
God's calling is a mystery - that is to say - something revealed by God but whose mechanisms and inner workings are not yet revealed. So, be content, as saint Paul advises in this passage, with the facts that are present today and rely on God's goodness, truth, mercy, and justice to show, at the last judgement, why things happened as they did.
