In Sam's section "On the Psalms being written before Plato", Sam writes,
"This cannot be reduced to a simple guess on the part of God as to what we will say. The writer goes on to say in Psalm 139:16 “Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them.” It seems clear that for God to know all of the days of our lives before we are even formed he must know all that will happen to us under any circumstance."
I'd like to thank Dr. Lamerson for helping to solidify my understanding and confidence in the OV position. Consider the following analogy.
I go out and build a homemade lawnmower in my garage. Before I built it, I ordained it to be a lawnmower. I knew before it was even created that it would mow my lawn. I knew it's inner workings and the overall projected lifespan of my project mower. I also knew it's needs before it even ran out of gas. I knew that oil was critical to it's survival. All of these things I took into consideration before even beginning to create the mower. Could I have built a go-cart instead, certainly. What about a tiller? Conceivably, I could even build a space shuttle with the right materials, knowledge, and space.
This is a rather simplistic analogy, but multiply the wisdom and knowledge of our Living God. How much more could He do with DNA and living cells? Wouldn't he know how his creation would perform, what it would do, how long it would last? What about it's performance? I ordained my mower to cut grass. What if someone stuck their hand underneath the housing? I didn't create a finger mower. But it became one because it was used incorrectly. The instructions weren't followed. The warning label was ignored and because of it; something outside of my design entered into the equation. Did I know that this could happen? Yes. Was that my intention for the mower when I set out to create it? No. But it was a risk I was willing to take because I chose to create a mower. Did God want us to disobey and enter into sin? No. He created us for His enjoyment and His fellowship. He also created a plan should such a thing happen. He pre-planned for the event...Christ's sacrifice. Just as I had a plan should someone cut their fingers off in the mower, I'd put the fingers in an ice chest, administer first aid, and take the person to the hospital. God is wise enough and clever enough to take all possibilities into consideration.
