Where the programmer fits in the Kingdom of God
December 5, 2008
by Sam McDonald
As a Programmer, and as a Christian, I have always wondered how the two intertwine. I think it is good to glorify God with the skills that he has given me. Those skills are in the area of programming, but at the same time programming is a very recent trade. The bible obviously has no reference to programmers or computer science (CS), and something about this seriously bothered me. At the time it was even hard to pinpoint exactly what was bothering me, but after thinking about it I realized that the problem was that I couldn’t find a spiritual connection between programming and God.
A couple months ago I was in a bookstore, and stumbled across the book, The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick P. Brooks. I had heard a lot about this book from both professors and from CS blogs. The book stands out as an anomaly in the CS book genre. Very rarely does a CS book last more than a few years, because of changing technology, but this book was still for sale in a store after being first printed over 30 years ago (1975). The reason is because he does a great job of talking about managing computer scientists, in a way that is still relevant today. However, the passage that I enjoyed most came in the first chapter. It reads,
Why is programming fun? What delights may its practitioner expect as his reward?
First is the sheer joy in making things. As the child delights in his mud pie, so the adult enjoys building things, especially things of his own design. I think this delight must be an image of God’s delight in making things, a delight shown in the distinctness and newness of each leaf and each snowflake.
It is a pretty easy connection. The programmer is of the same breed as any occupation that turns thought into a tangible item. Under this idea it is easy to see similarities between the programmer and the architect, or even the carpenter.
It is possible that this came as common sense to most programmers, but to me it didn’t. To me it meant seeing that something I love to do comes from the nature of God. It meant that when I sit down, and program, and am loving my work. I am loving something that is of the image of God, which really helps to put things into perspective.
Great post and passage.
I have not been heavily involved in programming since HyperCard was killed off (good times). But Mr. Brooks' description of what to expect reminds me of when I was a kid, dreaming up new ideas and building HyperCard stacks.
When you relate the creative process to God the way you have, it really does put things into perspective.
Why do you have to make something spiritual out of nothing spiritual?