I believe Daniel Dennet is an atheist, who (by asking this question) is trying to infer something from the fact that we can’t understand everything about God and His plan–namely that this somehow proves that there is no God.
Am I wrong?
That is what he’s trying to infer, isn’t it.
So for a Theist, the answer to his question would be “yes”–if the God of modern Theistic conception is untouchable by scientific methods of investigation, that is a “coincidence” (an “extraneous circumstance”.)
It’s not something Theists have designedly built into a God of their own making, for their own convenience (and that is what Dennet is suggesting, isn’t it?)
But I’m not at all sure it’s true to say God is untouchable by modern scientific methods of investigation–I think it’s closer to the truth to say many materialists don’t want to see any evidence of God.
Down here at this hospital I met a seminary student who use to be a medical doctor, and when I asked him how he went from being a man of science to a man of faith, he said "how could you not?"
And he talked about some of the things he’s seen under a microscope, and how the human body is designed, and about how sickness, and death, and dying are a part of a fallen world.
But getting back on topic (and I’m only trying to address issues I raised in my grief that no one else sufficiently addressed here–call it my penance if you like), the point of the OP was that even an all-knowing God (with absolute foreknowledge) wouldn’t necessarily will everything that happens in this world “per se.”
A broken clock is right twice a day, and even if the time it stoped was meant to have some significance for the first one or two passerbys, it will be seen by others if it’s in a heavily travelled public place, and it will be seen having the same time until it’s finally fixed or removed from that place.
So even if the time the clock stopped were willed per se for one or more passerbys, it would only be willed per accidens for others.
Again, that may be a poor example, but the point is that in a sufficiently complex universe (even if such a universe were ruled by divine Providence) there would be extraneous circumstances that could be mis-interpreted as meaningful signs, but were really just “coincidental.”