In the article, Sayers (2004) argues that everythijng that man encounters will try to get the real picture of it using analogies. Since we have not seen God, man has tried different analogies to compare God so that he gets the real pictiure of Him. Although the Jews tried as amuch as possible to discourage this behaviour, man has never ceased to compare God and think of Him in terms of analogies. If man is to stop comparing God with analogies, it is a way of telling man not to think of God. From time to time, man has been known to think over things that they are not sure of in terms of analogies. Most discoveries have been got by man analogising these occurences in the natural world. It has been said by skeptics that man created God in his own image instead of the other way where it is known that God created man in His own image. This has been said because man has analogised God in the ways of man. The many scientific theories that have been discovered have been discovered through the analogical mind of man. The reason why man used analogies is because he is made and wired to use pictures. It is therefore a waste of time to complain that man uses pictures to measure and understand God. Man wil never abandon this behaviour of measuring God in his own image.
Because of the use of analogies that we have thought and measured God with, we have therefore come to a point where we think of God as a king. In this analogy, we take God to have a kingdom and soldiers. He is the ruler of the universe. In other instances, we take God ot be a father and we therefore bring all our family relations and thinking to that of God. We want to think of God as a father with children and wife. This is the analogy that Jesus Christ was fond of. He normally referred to God as the father. We are therefore told that because we have one father, we should treat all men as though they were our own brothers. We are not required to associate the activities of the natural father or th earthly father to those of God like the fact that most earthly fathers are cruel or should earn a living to take care of their families. This does not apply to our God. We are to get the good and the powerful things that God can do for us. It is only if we are stupid to think like above.
Then there is the question of whether saying God is the creator is a metaphor or not. In the argument of God the father, we are well aware of what a father can do but in the sense of God the creator, we are not aware and we cannot belive that God created everything out of nothing. In our own imagination, it is impossible to create something out of nothing. All the things that we have in the universe have been created from something. We just alter and rearrange what we have in the universe to get what we want.
Idea and power
In this sense, the universe is regarded as one. They are inseparable. Just in the same breath, artists make use of different parts to come up with something as whole. A writer will have different ideas that need to be integrated together to have one full outcome. In the same sense, the modeler artist will combine various skills and various components to come up with a wonderful art. It is therefore a skill that to the outsouder is strange and hard to get. To the artist, this is something which must be present for the whole process to come out successfully. The author has used the writer as an example. The writer will combine the skills of imagination to come up with a good piece that is wonderful and interesting to the reader. If the reader is asked how these ideas were combined to the extent where it is, the writer will be at pains ot explain because these skills and art are hard to be separated. It is hard to get the idea, energy and the power. These are skills which are combined and to the outsider, they may seem to be one. It is hard to separate the different components that some piece of art have been created from. It is also hard to determine the skill and the energy that the artist has used in creating it.
Art and Information Technology Specialist
Analogy is also seen in information systems. This is evident when we consider that information technology is a complex field which is new in the world. Most of the things that IT specialists do are new and not conversant for many. We get to learn about them by way of analogies. Even the teaching of it is by way of illustrations and analogies. When teaching programming, we normally get the use of analogies where information systems are taken to be objects which has classes and methods. Methods are regarded to be behaviour just like a living thing has behaviour.
Information technologists create objects and things out of something. They do not create them out of nothing. The create from the known to the unknown. Just like artists rearrange the matter that is found in the universe, the IT specialists will make use of code and programming expertise and language that they know to create the solution to a problem. There should be a problem that needs to be solved first. This therefore requires that the information technologist gets to develop s system out of the need to solve a given problem.
Although the analogies that are used in the Bible are not true and given the fact that although God is regarded as our father He is totally different in many ways with the earthly father, most objects and information technology creations have the same characteristics and features of the things in which they model. They take the form and will behave as they are programmed. This si because they are created by human beings and nor by God who is capable of performing miracles. In this regard, then, most of the objects which are modeled by IT creations have the same characteristics. In an information system for student records, for example, a student class will have a registration number, name and course just like a student has these three attributes. The class is modeled to take the features of a student. They are therefore required to be the same.
Information technology and the issue of creation are closely related. Information technologists come up with objects by way of modeling the natural things and objects. It is hard to understand the way information technologists come up with the objects and how information systems operate. To non-specialists, it is something that operates as one. To IT specialists, there are many components which make the whole information system. There are various objects, classes, methods and statements that must be coordinated together. To the non-IT specialists, the whole process involves coding the whole system. To the IT specialist, it entails desigining the whole system and working on modlaities. There are nany issues that need to be coordinated and worked upon to come up with the required state and system. IT specialsists work like artists as they have to work on various issues that need to be looked at. Information technology is an art in itself. The various technoligies that need to be applied in the various situations need to be coordinated and arranged to work for the common purpose of the information system.
An information system makes use of data to get the required information that is found in the data. The information technologist strives to get the information that will help enhance the performance of the organisation. There are data mining tools that are used in the system so that the specialist can understand what the client wants. The information technlogist makes use of this data and information to come up with the solution. It is interesting to get to know how the specialist know what is required of the information system and what the customer and user knows. Informtion is got from data. To an outsider, this seems something hard to grasp. It is hard to understand all these requirements unless one views them in the mind of an information technologist.
When programming, an information techologist will make use of the information that is provided and come up with use cases that models the requirements of the system. this will help the information technologits or the programmer to understand the end product of the system. The progammer will model the whole system and get to understand the user requiremetns. It is a long process that requires many compoonents which cannot be separated.
References
Sayers, D. L. (2004). The mind of the nmaker. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group.
