Biblical typology and historical causality

There's a striking parallel between typological fulfillment and chain effects. Concerning the latter:

The beginning of a poem that makes the point that a seemingly minor event can lead to significant consequences.

For want of a nail, the shoe was lost;
For want of the shoe, the horse was lost;
For want of the horse, the rider was lost;
For want of the rider, the battle was lost;
For want of the battle, the kingdom was lost;
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail

An important caveat is that these chains of causality are only ever seen in hindsight. Nobody ever lamented, upon seeing his unshod horse, that the kingdom would eventually fall because of it. Equally important, yet tending to be overlooked, is that, when we trace these events backward, starting from the fall of Rome and finally ascribing it to a blacksmith oversleeping one morning -- or do we go one step further and blame the visting friend who kept him up all night drinking mead -- we are following branches of a tree structure...

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1097943

By the same token, even though types foreshadow their antitypes, their prospective significance can only be discerned in retrospect. Looking back you can appreciate the emerging pattern. The convergence of apparently disparate events on a common, climactic event.

There's nothing inherently fanciful in typology–no more so than chain events. Keep in mind, too, that some chain events are orchestrated. It doesn't just happen to turn out that way. It's the result of coordinated planning.

But in the case of Biblical typology, this isn't humanly possible. It takes long-range prevision and superhuman power to make that happen.