Does Typology Require Sovereignty?
— Monday, February 27th, 2012 —
If Greg Boyd held to a classically orthodox view of God, he’d be my favorite contemporary systematic theologian. Boyd, a pastor in Minnesota, gets something that I think is crucially central in the Bible, what he calls a “warfare worldview” of the triumph of Christ over the demonic powers. Unfortunately, Boyd also holds (falsely, in my view) that God doesn’t know all the future decisions of his free human and angelic creatures. When it comes to war, he’s dead on. When it comes to precisely how that war is waged, I think he’s off.
But my appreciation for Boyd is what led me to pay attention to his recent dialogue (via, of all things, the social medium of Twitter) with Graeme Goldsworthy’s works on gospel-centered hermeneutics. Boyd was interacting particularly with Goldsworthy’s treatment of typology. In the middle of all of this, my doctoral student (and now colleague) Phillip Bethancourt asked (again, via Twitter) how typology could fit in an open theist scheme. Boyd replied, “In Open Theism future is PARTLY open and PARTLY SETTLED and God controls the parameters and anticipates the outcomes.”
That’s, of course, true. And, thus, even the title of this post is a little misleading due to its shorthand nature. Boyd, and other revisionist theists, believe in sovereignty; they don’t believe in a meticulous sovereignty over the details, whether that sovereignty is based primarily on God’s exhaustive wisdom or on God’s exhaustive power.
But the partly settled nature of the future doesn’t get at the real matter when it comes to typology. Typology, of course, is God’s working in history, in which persons or nations or structures or institutions point forward to a historical fulfillment in the future. The Temple is a type of Christ because there God dwells with his people. David is a type of Christ because he is a shepherd, a warrior king, is anointed with the Holy Spirit, and so on.
As far as it goes, many of the types of Christ in the Old Testament narrative are workable in an open theist framework. After all, God is always planning an Incarnation (Eph. 1:10), and much of what it means for Jesus to be Jesus is based solely on his own character and his own mission. But there’s more to typology.
It is not just Jesus himself who is typified in the Old Testament. It is instead specific narrative arcs in the life of Christ, which are dependent on free human decisions. The slaughter of the innocents of Bethlehem, for instance, is the result of one man’s sinful decision, that of King Herod of Judea (Matt. 2:16). And yet, the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt is a typological fulfillment. Israel, God’s son, went into Egypt, surviving there the certain death of famine back in Canaan, and then returned to the land of promise. Jesus is taken into Egypt for a season, and then returns. All this happened, Matthew tells us, “to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I called my son’” (Matt. 2:15).
Moreover, the New Testament typology extends to, for example, Judas Iscariot, who is a type of Ahithopel, the “trusted friend” David lost to betrayal, the one who ate bread with the king and then turned his heel against him (2 Sam. 15:12; Ps. 41:9). The historical structure of all of this, including David’s lament over it all in the Psalms (Ps. 55:12-14), comes to fulfillment in the Judas betrayal, which is said to be a fulfillment of the Scriptures (Acts 1:16). And yet, the whole thing is dependent on the free decision of Judas. If Judas had counted the cost better, and decided the kingdom of God is worth more than thirty pieces of silver, the typological pattern is broken.
What’s more, most of the prophecies of the cross are rooted not in mere foretelling, but in typology. Psalm 22, for instance, arises out of David’s own experience of dereliction and defeat by enemies. But this historical experience points forward to the ultimate dereliction of Golgotha. And these prophecies, rooted in David’s own experience, are based on pretty specific acts of human decision. The soldiers had to decide to gamble for Jesus’ clothes. Jesus’ bones were not broken, in keeping with the typology of Scripture (John 19:36). This wasn’t because they were physically indestructible. It’s because, in the mysterious sovereignty of God, no centurion chose to snap them.
Greg Boyd is right about the ancient warfare worldview. And he knows how to write and teach with a passion and clarity appropriate to the biblical revelation. I think he’s wrong though that this warfare requires an “open” future for God, and typology is one more reason why.
While I’m not a fan of Open Theism, I have a warm spot in my heart for Greg Boyd. I heard him speak back when I was an atheist, and it was the first time I heard a truly “intellectual” response for why God could exist. It changed my life.
Near the end when you began to mention Judas Iscariot, I began to think about free will and prophecy. I see no contradiction between the two because human free will fulfills divine prophecy. Instead of being contradictory, they fit together hand-in-glove. Even though something is prophecied, humans maintain free will, so they must face the results or consequences of their chosen actions.
So, God would have opposed the SBC’s opposition to gambling, on the basis that he himself is an avid gambler of cosmic proportions.
That is, He gambled that Mary would say “yes”, that Pilate would say “OK, fine”, and that no less than one human being would say “yes” to a resurrected Jesus.
Can you imagine the scene in heaven if all of us dead-according-to-Paul-but-still-capable-of-exercising-our-free-will-humans had decided against Jesus?
Now, that’s a story line that takes some kind of faith.
I’ll take the Omni-God of the Bible, please, Greg.
@Josh Waulk,
There really should be a “like” button for this comment.
*Like.*
@Josh Waulk,
My understanding of Greg’s position on the future and God’s role in it is just like Moore says: It is partly open and partly settled. God, of course, will assure that the final outcome is according to his ultimate plan of redemption, but he allows us to be free in our choices within that ultimate plan.
With that said, he did not gamble that Mary would say “yes” or that Pilate would say, “Okay, fine”, because he has certain parts of the future settled in order to fulfill his ultimate plan for the salvation/redemption of his creation.
God is still God, but he also gives us the responsibility of making choices that align with his will. We are given the choice to love him and love others; to be stewards of his creation….
I don’t understand how all of the commands in the Bible apply if God controls all we do in the first place. How do we enter into authentic relationship with a God that controls our decision?
I have spent the last 20 years reading and thinking about Divine sovereignty and human freedom (I prefer “human choice” since, due to our sinful nature, we are not actually free but rather slaves to sin). The absolute best explanation I have found comes from D. A. Carson in his book, “Spiritual Reformation,” where he dedicates an entire chapter to this issue. It is succinct, precise, exegetical and theologically sound.
@Jeremy Weart, Oops, the title of his book is, “A Call To Spiritual Reformation.”
All things lead to the sovereignty of God, and through it. We may not understand the means to this end but a Sovereign God cannot be sovereign unless He is sovereign over all. Man is (still) desperate to play some kind of role (or affect some type of outcome) in justification, and even sanctification, but we easily lose sight of the fact that everything that has happened or will happen is for God to glorify His Son. He has not left it up to ‘chance’ or ‘choice’ when His love demands that His Son be glorified. That would not be a wise choice by God to leave this up to me. Only my pride would say otherwise. For since before time began God had determined when, how, where, and to what extent I would be used by Him to glorify His Son. Through grace or by mercy He will not fail His Son.
If someone does not hold to a biblical understanding of God’s sovereignty, they do not believe in God’s sovereignty. Therefore, it would be inaccurate to credit Boyd with a belief in God’s sovereignty. He believes in an idol much stronger, wiser and more knowledgeable than any human, but it is an idol, nonetheless, and the biblical God is at war with such demonic forces, and He will win.
How is this different than the first few centuries of Rabbinic law? Christians call Jews out all the time for taking the Torah and patching it with a thousand different things that aren’t in the Torah at all.
This entire thing is nothing but a discussion of “How MUCH of everything does god know?”
Huh!!?
Boyd’s book entitled “Satan and the Problem of Evil” is a wonderful book. It does support the “warfare theodicy” and does it in a skillful manner.
Dr. Moore-
I really appreciated this post as well as your support for Dr. Boyd’s warfare worldview. As a post-boydian who is now reformed I still found myself fond of his views regarding spiritual warfare. However much of the warfare worldview hinges on open-theism. My question is what are the things that you appreciate and are concerned about regarding the warfare worldview? Let me know! I attend Covenant Seminary and would love considering doing an independent study on this subject!
Greg Boyd most certainly does believe in God’s sovereignty, because “sovereignty” wasn’t invented by Augustine or Calvin. God’s sovereignty is his reign over the cosmos—however he chooses to exercise it. Boyd believes God reigns over the cosmos. Therefore, Boyd believes in God’s sovereignty. Anyone who wishes to discredit Boyd of belief in God’s sovereignty does so on the basis of their biased opinion of how God exercises his reign.
Stop drinking Calvinist kool-aid.
I don’t think Dr. Moore was suggesting that Boyd doesn’t believe in God’s sovereignly but rather a type of view of the future that is not in line with the “classical” understanding of sovereignty.
My question for Boyd and other open-theists (which is one I could never answer) is that while part of the future is settled e.g. events such as Christ’s clothes being gambled, those events rely on countless other events to happen in order for that prophecy to take place, that I can’t understand how God could leave the future partially open without knowing with certainty all the contingent events leading up to the fulfillment of prophecy.
Let God be true, but every man a liar. (ladies included)
God is righteous in all His judgments. He is always fair. He is always impartial. His offer of the gift of eternal life to all is sincere. Man is responsible for his choices. Some choose Christ. Some choose the Devil. We persuade men. We pray for them. We weep over them. That is our responsibility. The final choice must be theirs. Some harden their hearts against the wooing of the Spirit as He convicts them of sin, of righteousness, and judgment. What seems to be missing today is not learned discourses but Spirit empowered preaching on sin, righteousness and judgment. We need revival. Amen..
God’s sovereignty is a precious truth to be received by faith. But a concept much too large for little men to explain.
If God is only partially sovereign then he is a slave to the wiles of human kind and the decisions of others. Only God has true free will to “will and to act”and only God can write history and weave a Salvation for all mankind with His mighty hand. Dr. Boyd seems to feel a need to give God room to breath when things that are not easily explained (by us) happen.
RMB