interventionist sewing machine from above or divine iceberg from below?

  Capon's charts on competing views of history below.  Which do prefer?

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Capon on video talks on this:
 
 

  (all 3 videos here) ----------------

Gary Mar summarizes Capon's charts of divine action in history (from pp.426-433 of  Capon's subversive classic, "Kingdom Grace Judgment: Paradox, Outrage,and Vindication in the Parables"):

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III-A. Two Models of the Divine Action in Human History.

History, according to a Christian perspective, is not merely a random series of happenings, but a meaningful sequence of events in the grandest of all narratives: a narrative that lead to the end of history in the final fulfillment of God's purposes for humanity. Moreover, the acts of God in history are not limited to the Old and New Testaments, but continue today in the unfolding of current events. To clarify how this might be conceived, I borrow two contrasting pictures from Robert Farrar Capon's Parables of Judgment. The first picture sees God as transcendent upon, but connected to, human history through a few critical biblically-recorded divine interventions. Robert Capon explains:

Since God, the Alpha and Omega, the A and the W, is up there above history, I shall draw a series of descending lines to represent his several comings down his interventions in history, his intersections in history. The picture we have drawn looks like nothing so much as a divine sewing machine, with the needle coming down at various points and tacking God to history. It is salvation as the divine basting stitch. [13]

Figure 3. The Divine Tailor or Interventionist Model of Gods Relation to Human History

The above divine tailor or interventionist view of history with its occasional biblically-recorded accounts of divine actions connecting heaven and earth can be contrasted with what might be called the divine iceberg or sacramental view of God's relationship to human history. Capon contrasts and continues:

Figure 4. The Divine Iceberg or Sacramental Model of Gods Relation to Human History.

But now, let me posit God not as a divine tailor in heaven sending down an interventionist needle from time to time but as a divine iceberg present under all of time. On that analogy, one-tenth of his presence to history will be visible above the surface of its waters and nine-tenths will be invisible below the surface, but his presence out of sight will be as much a part of history as his presence in broad daylight. The divine acts in history are not just occasional interventions of a reality that wasn't present before, they are precisely acted parablessacraments, if you will, real presences--of a reality that was there all along.[14]

If Gods interaction with human history is more like an iceberg than a sewing machine, then it is reasonable to suppose that the particular cross section of the iceberg represented by the narrative of scripture might intersect with the cross-sectional histories of many nations. Martin Luther King Jr., for example, could direct and inspire the Civil Rights struggle in America by drawing upon the Old Testament narrative of the liberation of the Jewish nation from Egypt. When Christians immerse themselves in the gospel narratives, they naturally interpret the events of their lives through the spiritual categories and truths of the Scripture such notions as creational blessing, fall, and redemption. This is part of what is meant by conversion. Similarly, to interpret our nations historylike our life stories--through the categories of scripture is an invitation to see more, and more deeply.[15]  - LINK:   And the Leaves of the Tree Were for the Healing of Nations: Philosophical Explorations and Documentary Strategies for Global Missions

 by Professor Gary Mar

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Excerpt from Capon's book:

Let me posit God not as a divine tailor in heaven sending down an interventionist needle from time to time but as a divine iceberg present under all of time. On that analogy, one tenth of his presence to history will be visible above the surface of its waters, and nine tenths will be invisible below the surface, but his presence out of sight will be just as much a part of history as his presence in broad daylight. The divine acts in history are not just occasional interventions of a reality that wasn’t present before; they are precisely acted parables - sacraments, if you will, real presences - of a reality that was there all along ... Better yet, the WHOLE of the mystery that underlies creation is present every time one of those sacramental outcroppings of the mystery occurs. It is not, for example, that the mystery of the Creation occurs only at the beginning, to be superseded later on by the mystery of the Passover and then by the mystery of the Cross, the mystery of the Resurrection, and the mystery of the Judgement at the End. It is that those several manifestations are outcroppings of a single, age-long mystery of Creation-Call-Passover-Redemption-Resurrection-Judgment that is fully present in every one fo the. Just as each upthrusting of the iceberg is one and the same iceberg in a visible aspect, so each upthrusting of the mystery is a visible aspect of one and the same mystery.”  link