How does God know that what He says will come to pass?

[squirrelyguy]

I'll begin this post with a famous quote from R. C. Sproul: "If there is one maverick molecule in the universe, one molecule running loose outside the scope of God's sovereign ordination, then ladies and gentlemen, there is not the slightest confidence that you can have that any promise that God has ever made about the future will come to pass." (There are several variations of it since he apparently used this illustration frequently.)

My question is, why is this statement necessarily true? It seems to me that as long as you believe that God is omnipotent, then it really doesn't matter if you believe He is omniscient. By virtue of His power alone, He is able to guarantee that anything He declares in advance will come to pass. It does not matter if we live in a universe full of "maverick molecules" doing their own thing; because God can squash them at will, or create new agents at will (see Matt. 3:9), He does not gain any providential advantage by knowing what they will do in advance, much less by ordaining what they will do.

Comments?

 

[Stephen]

That's my take on it.

If I plan to get to Salt Lake, I just have to have the means to get there and I have several options: plane, train, automobile, bicycle, walk, etc.... and I can overcome any likely to getting there with several redundancies without having to control every molecule in the universe.

Likewise God has his plan, and he has innumerable powerful angels to bring about his desired outcome without having to actively control every molecule in the universe. The universe will act within the laws he prescribed and he can go about his specific plans for planet earth.