@7seasrekeyed
If you're interested in discussing it, I actually prefer to use the analogy of the husbandman, but it takes a little more explanation, while the analogy of the rat in a carefully controlled maze does not. But both illustrate the truth well.
The task of the husbandman is to create all the right circumstances and provide all the right things for the soil to realize the potential that piece of ground contains.
The ground can't realize it's own potential. It can't seed itself. It can't water itself. It has to be subjected to various outside influences by a husbandman in order for the ground to do what it is capable of doing, if it's capable of doing anything.
If I understand Calvinism, it teaches that God purposely creates some soil with no potential to sustain growth, and other soil with the potential to sustain growth, entirely at his own discretion, with zero consideration of what the soil itself wants. You probably know the soil I'm referring to is the soil of human hearts.
I think the more accurate understanding is each human soul that God has created has in itself it's own inherent potential to produce and sustain useful growth, or not produce and sustain useful growth.
I believe that inherent potential belongs to the soil itself and is not assigned to the soil by God.
The job of the husbandman is to subject the soil to whatever it needs to be subjected to in order to realize it's inherent potential, or reveal it's lack of potential. And he does that according to his foreknowledge. For example, he's not going to plant lots of seed in a plot of soil (remember, we're talking about human hearts here) that he knows ahead of time has no potential in and of itself to bring that seed to fruition. Meanwhile, he may abundantly seed and water a plot of soil that he knows has lots of potential to bring what's planted in it to fruition.