If God is sovereign, why do we disagree on theology?

Augustine of Hippo 

Spurgeon once said:

 I believe there are multitudes of men who cannot see these truths, or, at least, cannot see them in the way in which we put them, who nevertheless have received Christ into their hearts, and are as dear to the heart of the God of grace as the soundest Calvinist out of heaven. (The Man with the Measuring Line)

 Perspectives

When we talk about the Gospels, we always point out that the four Gospels describe the events of Christ's ministry in four different ways, and we can pretty obviously see how God uses that to address different concerns and different needs and we can affirm that all four Gospels are describing the same event.

Now, the analogy obviously breaks down when we talk about theological division, because we assert that one is right and the other is wrong. But, I think a lot of that is because we put more stock than we should in these theological conceptualizations.

Take Arminianism and Calvinism, for example. There are definitely some exegetical differences between Arminianism and Calvinism, (like how we approach Romans 7) BUT, the main difference between these two theories is philosophical. I think that Calvinism as a philosophical theory best accounts for what the Bible teaches, but I also don't think it fully does justice to the mystery of the Gospel, because I think that we as humans are incapable of comprehending a theory that truly does that.

So, with these two theories, I think that what we have are different imperfect perceptions of the same miracle. I think that Calvinists have a more accurate description, but I also have met people for whom the Arminian perspective provides them with direction that they need that a Calvinist system probably wouldn't resonate the same way for...

Perspectivalism

Vern Sheridan Poythress has written a book called Symphonic Theology:: The Valididy of Multiple Perspectives in Theology.  In it, he argues for a theological approach he has developed together with John Frame. John Frame and Vern Poythress are both Reformed scholars and their theory is known as 'multi-perspectivalism'. I love the theory and I think it captures things very well. On their site you can also find articles that summarize it a bit more succinctly.

Basically, the way it works is this: When it comes to man gaining knowledge, there are three main components at work, the normative perspective (That's the Word of God, itself), the situational perspective (That is the situation of the writer of the text and the situation that an idea is being introduced in, and then there's the existential perspective, which is unique to every individual and accounts for all the personal baggage that we bring to the text.

According to Frame, all these things work together in forming our views on various theological topics. I think he's right. If he is, let's see how that applies to our problem, here:

God, for his glory, has decreed certain circumstances and temperaments and mental acuities for all his elect. He has also decreed that each one of us will serve a different role in carrying out his work on earth. Sometimes, to accomplish God's will, God has ordained that we will fail, or that we will come up short, or that we will make mistakes. Sometimes we simply won't listen closely to the Holy Spirit's guidance, and we will interpret things the wrong way.

This happens to all of us, and for some of us that mistake happens in an area like Baptism, sometimes it's a mistake in something like the use of God's law in the life of the believer; it could be in eschatology, or it could be in God's decree (where Calvinists and Arminians argue). All of us are very likely to have multiple areas where we have made these mistakes.

How we make these mistakes will affect how we live our lives. For example, Jerry Falwell was mistaken about God's decree and eschatology. He believed in Free Will and Dispensationalism. But, his belief in Free Will and Dispensationalism drove him to feel like Liberty University was a needed thing in our society, and so, today, thousands of Christians can get their education at an elite Christian school and God was glorified because of Falwell's theological missteps.

God made me have bad theology!  

I hear this silly response to those of us who believe that God's sovereignty makes him the ruler over every event in history all the time. It's frustrating. What this comment does is begs the question on the debate over how mankind's freedom works. Reformed theology teaches that man decreed all that will be while establishing the liberty and contingency of secondary causes and doing no violence to the will of the creature. (See the Westminster and 2nd London confessions of faith). 

Remember in the Old Testament when Joseph told his brothers that they meant their actions for evil but God meant their actions for good? This is exactly what we are talking about. God will bring himself glory through our mistakes, and shortcomings. Further, our shortcomings our the result of our own desires intruding on our ability to follow the perfect guidance of the Holy Spirit. 

Conclusion

My grace is sufficient for thee, for my power is made perfect in weakness. (II Corinthians 12:9)

There is some debate as to what exactly Paul is referring to, here. But I think it applies in our discussion. Paul speaks of 'boasting' of our weaknesses, and, while we should certainly not be proud of the fact that we make mistakes theologically, we SHOULD glorify God for the fact that our salvation comes via his grace and not via our ability to affirm perfect theology.