Is it right to raise a different standard for the Scriptures? "Certainly," say many, "because the Bible is inspired; it is the Word of God, and God cannot inspire an untruth of any kind." {56} Now, it may be readily admitted that God cannot inspire an untruth; but have we any right to argue as if we knew exactly how God ought to convey a revelation to man? Without entering upon a discussion of the entire subject of inspiration, the question may be raised whether or not inspiration covers purely scientific information. The claim has been put forth by some who believe that the Bible and science are in perfect agreement that this agreement "proves that the scientific element of scripture as well as the doctrinal was within the scope of inspiration."[28] Consistency might seem to require the admission that disagreement would prove that the scientific element does not fall within the scope of inspiration. At any rate, it is of enormous importance to remember, what should be a perfectly obvious principle, that the facts presented in the Bible must determine the answer to the inquiry. In other words, "We can learn what the Bible is only from what the Bible itself says."[29] One thing is quite certain, namely, that the Bible makes not the slightest claim of being a scientific treatise complete and up-to-date.[30] It is equally true that it does not deny being such a treatise, hence the inquirer is thrown back upon a study of the facts presented in the Bible; and upon the basis of these he must determine whether or not there is reason for believing that scientific {57} knowledge comes within the scope of inspiration. Now, the abstract possibility of God communicating to man a knowledge of exact scientific facts in a prescientific age need not be denied. It is, however, a question whether God could have communicated such facts to man three thousand years ago without robbing him of his personality and changing him into a mechanism. So far as the ways of God are known from experience, observation, history, and other sources, he has always treated with respect and consideration the powers and faculties of his chief creature. "Had inspired men," says Dods,[31] "introduced into their writings information which anticipated the discoveries of science, their state of mind would be inconceivable, and revelation would be a source of confusion. God's methods are harmonious with one another, and as he has given men natural faculties to acquire scientific knowledge and historical information, he did not stultify this gift by imparting such knowledge in a miraculous and unintelligible manner." The same truth is expressed by H. E. Ryle in these words: "We do not expect instruction upon matters of physical inquiry from revelation in the written Word. God's other gifts to men, of learning, perseverance, calculation, and the like, have been and are a true source of revelation. But scripture supplies no short cut for the intellect.