Why metaphor matters: technology and trees
This is a blog post about technology, metaphor, humanity, and discipleship. That might sound a little ambitious for 1500 words and perhaps it is (aspiring poets often try to say too much in too few words), but I hope to show you three things in what follows:
- That technology shapes the metaphors we use to describe ourselves as humans
- That this is perhaps hindering our discipleship
- There is something we can do about it.
A technological age
It is now a banality to say that we live in a technological age. This is a digital article, written on a laptop, which you are now reading on a computer or more probably on a mobile phone. All created without pen or ink or paper or printing and impossible 50 years ago. All now entirely normal. Much digital (and physical) ink has been spilled discussing the wonders and woes of technology – arguments that don’t need repeating. But regardless of your view of technology, there is just one point I want to make here: technology changes us.
Technology is not merely a tool we use, ‘it profoundly shapes us’.[1] It provides an entire way of understanding the world, a way of being/existing in the world. Technology impacts the way we live in the world, and that includes the way we speak about ourselves. It includes the metaphors we use to describe a human life.
Metaphors – in this economy?
Now, you may be thinking, ‘Metaphors? Aren’t those things that you use in poems, not in the real world?’. But our daily speech is filled with metaphorical language. It is full of language which involves ‘understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another’, to give metaphor a basic definition.[2]
Think for a minute about the metaphorical concept time is money. We understand and experience time as if it is money. Our everyday speech is filled with phrases that reflect this metaphor:
You’re wasting my time
This gadget will save you hours
How do you spend your time these days?
That flat tire will cost me an hour
I’ve invested a lot of time in her[3]
Importantly, these are not merely figures of speech. Nor are they simply ways we talk about time. The way we talk about time reflects how we think about time. We actually consider our time as spent, wasted, used, or saved. The way we speak about, and conceive of, time also changes the way we act with regards to time. For example, many jobs pay hourly wages. There is a recognition here that time is a valuable commodity, and that giving of your time should be matched with another valuable commodity – money. Hourly wages are time is money in action.
It is worth noting that these metaphors do most of their work subconsciously. When we speak of time as if it is money, we don’t even recognise that we are doing so, because it is such an ingrained metaphorical concept. Despite operating largely unconsciously, however, metaphors have a huge impact on the way we speak, think and act. Time is money is just one example. But there are hundreds of metaphorical concepts that shape not only our speech, but our lives. And our technological age has brought its own technological metaphors.
Technological metaphor and discipleship
Technological metaphors have become common in the way we talk about human life and activity. Some of the most commonplace are the human as computer, brain as computer, or mind as machine metaphors. We speak of: ‘processing’ information and events; needing to ‘recharge our batteries’; trying to ‘understand the workings of someone’s mind’; wondering what makes someone ‘tick’; ‘running out of steam’; being ‘a little rusty’; needing to ‘update each other about life events, like new software’.[4] This trend (particularly because of the often unconscious way we adopt these ways of speaking) has also influenced the church. Even here we have adopted technological metaphors into our speech.
But what is the problem? Why does this matter? Well, firstly, a few caveats: no metaphor is perfect; all will highlight certain aspects of humanity while hiding others; all will fall short of capturing fully what it is to be made in the image of God; all will fail if we push them too far. However, we must be able to say that ‘there are better and worse metaphors, metaphors that are closer or further from the truth, that possess greater or fewer similarities to the things they seek to describe’.[5] Technological metaphors run the risk of falling into the later of each of those pairings.
Joy Clarkson, in her book You Are A Tree: And Other Metaphors To Nourish Life, Thought, and Prayer, says, for example, that ‘as a systematic metaphor for human flourishing humans are computers is both incomplete and unforgiving’.[6] She emphasises two ways in particular that this metaphor subtly teaches us to view humans in unforgiving ways: through the lens of productivity and utility. Technological metaphors give the impression that ‘a creature is primarily valuable for what we can produce’.[7] They can also cause us to adopt a view of ‘disposability, the value of human persons for their ability to “function” effectively’.[8] Rachel Thomas further suggests that ‘this could have the severest consequences for the vulnerable in society’.[9] Those who are less ‘useful’ or ‘productive’ are quickly disparaged in a culture beholden to technological metaphors.
Clarkson also emphasises how this metaphor is incomplete and makes the profound point that ‘the ways in which we “fail” to be a computer fall close to humankind’s greatest strengths: loyalty, resilience, intuition, creativity’.[10] Technological metaphors not only place unrealistic burdens on limited human creatures, but also fail to account for many of the positive traits and characteristics that stem from the work of the Spirit and our being made in the Image of God. Here we glimpse the impact our use of technological metaphors might have on discipleship.
What can we do?
If technological metaphors are a problem, what can we do about it? I want to suggest two things we can do: be more aware of the metaphors we use and also be more careful with the metaphors we use. Let’s look at each of those ideas briefly.
Firstly, we can be more aware of the metaphors we use. Why not record 15 minutes of your next lecture, teaching session, Sunday school lesson or sermon and listen for the metaphors you are using when you talk about humans. Or perhaps listen or read through some old sermons. What are the dominant metaphors you use to describe human activity? (and what might the unspoken implications of those metaphors be?) Have you adopted technological metaphors in your speech? How do these metaphors line up with what you believe to be true of human beings and the Christian life? Those are just a few questions to help raise awareness of the metaphors you use, and the impact they can have.
Secondly, we can be more careful in our use of metaphors. Because of the ingrained, mostly unconscious way we use these metaphorical concepts, it is difficult to intentionally consider our everyday use of language. But in our more formal, planned speech – sermons, written prayers, Sunday school lessons, we can and should be carefully choosing the ways we speak of human beings. We should ensure we are counteracting the ways these technological metaphors (and perhaps some other metaphors we use) teach us to think. We should also make greater use of the metaphors which scripture gives us. To give just one example, humans are spoken of as trees in several places in the Bible. This is at once grander, more forgiving, and more natural than the idea of a human as a machine. Are you making the most of the metaphors scripture supplies? If we want to see our people grow, let’s tell them they are trees.
Let me offer one final example. Imagine a pastor preaching a sermon on rest, with the main point being that God gives us rest, not so we can work harder but so that we can enjoy our relationship with Him. He calls the sermon ‘recharge’, makes extensive use of the idea of recharging our spiritual batteries, and speaks of how we need to be plugged into God the ultimate power source. Can you see how the metaphors he is using push against the message? This is why the metaphors we use matter for discipleship. We are not machines that need our spiritual batteries plugged in to be recharged. We are trees needing our roots nourished by streams of living water, that we may abide in Christ. ‘He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither’ (Psalm 1:3). Technological metaphors abound, but we are not machines, we are not computers. We are human beings; we are trees.
Ryan Gray is based in Belfast, where he works as a Civil Servant. He joined cultivate in the inaugural 2023 cohort, with a focus on exploring questions around language and theology through the lens of poetry. 
[1] Michael Hanby, “Homo Faber and/or Homo Adorans: On the Place of Human Making in a Sacramental Cosmos,” Communio International Catholic Review 38:2, 200.
[2] George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 5.
[3] Lakoff and Johson, Metaphors We Live By, 7.
[4] Zoltan Kovecses, Metaphor: A Practical Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), ix
Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 37.
Joy Clarkson, You Are A Tree – And Other Metaphors To Nourish Life, Thought, And Prayer (Minnesota: Bethany House Publishers, 2024), 21.
[5] Clarkson, You Are A Tree, 25.
[6] Clarkson, You Are A Tree, 23.
[7] Clarkson, You Are A Tree, 23.
[8] Clarkson, You Are A Tree, 24.
[9] Rachel Thomas, “Rage against the metaphor: Should we stop comparing ourselves to machines?”, Theos Think Tank https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2019/03/20/rage-against-the-metaphor-should-we-stop-comparing-ourselves-to-machines
[10] Clarkson, You Are A Tree, 25.