Design & Theology

February 15, 2012Posted inDesign, General, God, Theology4 Comments

I did an internet search recently to understand what designers like me (web, graphic, or industrial designers specifically) think about their activity in terms of how it relates to God.  The first post I came across after doing a Google search was a blog with a category page with a confusing title of “The Design of Theology.”  All its posts were instead about the theology of design.  The first one I read was about how the main purpose of graphic / communication design was to share or promote the glory of God.  This seemed to me a good idea, but a little odd because a professional graphic designer often does things other than that, so it would be hard to argue that this is the primary purpose of Graphic design in the sphere of human society, and it would lead a professional to feel a little guilty that he or she wasn’t doing something “churchy.”  This is unhelpful theology to me or anyone not working as a graphic designer for a church.

The second post I read was much worse.

The inner self

March 13, 2007Posted inDesign, Motivations, Philosophy11 Comments

I finally got around to doing some diagrams about how I see my inner self (the spiritual person) and its different parts. I have written extensively about this in previous posts, but since I am a designer more than I am a philosopher or psychologist (I studied all three in college), I wanted to draw it out in a diagram. So the inner self, in its most basic form, seems to be composed of 3 elements – my heart (the real me) and my two influences, my self-destructive nature (selfish nature) and my conscience (my self-preserving nature). Below shows a diagram of each.This is a study that is very important to me, and is one of the main reasons why I started the weblog (among others). For my working theory is if I can understand the inner self (starting with me as the primary subject), its components and their makeup and interactions, I will better understand the reality of further circles of influences (personal relationships -> community -> society -> time period -> existence) But it all starts with how a single person works, on the inside. Below is the diagram that represents basically the entirety of all the philosophy, psychology, and spiritual reading and thinking I’ve done on the spiritual human being in the past 20 years.

inner_self_1

At first glance, you might see this and immediately think of the iconic demon and angel sitting on a person’s shoulder whispering in their ear, but bear with me! There’s a lot more to this diagram and the thinking that goes behind it.

Living the way I was designed

September 9, 2006Posted inDesign1 Comment

I realized the other day that in order to live well, we must live in accordance with how were are designed. Since we are multi-dimensional beings, being both spiritual and physical, it stands to reason that we are designed to live a certain way in both parts.

First of all, it is important to note that we are in fact, designed. This is an easy observation. We are not a product of evolution from a lesser life form and the sum total of millions of years of random mutations that ended up being the incredibly complex thing we call human today. I’m not debating exactly how we came to be or how long it took, I’m just looking at myself and saying that it is pretty obvious that I am the result of an intelligent, conscious designer, not the result of unconscious random forces acting on rocks and water that eventually become human. There are many parts of me that tell me so — I have a hand to hold, grab, and manipulate objects, I have senses that allow me to interact and receive feedback with the world around me. I have skin that allows me to live in certain environments and not others.