Ryle on science and the Bible

'The Bible was not written to teach a system of geology, botany, or astronomy, or a history of birds, insects, and animals, and on matters touching these subjects it wisely uses popular language, such as common people can understand. No one thinks of saying that the Astronomer Royal contradicts science because he speaks of the sun's "rising and setting".' Ryle,JC, 1878, Old Paths, 2005 ed, Banner of Truth, p25

Ryle goes on to quote (p.26) from Whewell's Philosophy of Inductive Science, Vol.i, p.686:
'The language of Scripture is necessarily adapted to the common state of man's intellectual development, in which he is not supposed to be possessed of the sciences. Hence the phrases used by Scripture are precisely those which science soon teaches man to consider inaccurate. Yet they are not on that account the less fitted for their purpose, for if any terms had been used adapted to a more advanced state of knowledge, they must have been unintelligible to those to whom the Scripture was first addressed.'

This is very prescient given that Ryle was writing BEFORE the advent of either Quantum Mechanics or Relativity and we're still struggling with getting those 'right' - maybe String Theory, maybe MOND, ...? If God really wrote 'scientifically' about the creation or about miracles no one alive today would understand what He was saying to us.

As Cardinal Baronius (1598) said "The Bible was written to show us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go."

JC Ryle's Old Paths - Incomplete

There follows a brief description of Ryle's book 'Old Paths' and an outline of it's contents. I have found Ryle to be a very systematic thinker and his tracts (see below) are arranged in a very systematic way. I could easily imagine him using PowerPoint were he alive today.

Ryle describes this book as '... a series of papers, systematically arranged, on the leading truths of Christianity which are "necessary to salvation".' (p.v). First published in 1878 this is a collection of tracts most of which '... were written separately, and at long intervals of time, in some cases of as much as twenty years. On clam reflection, I have thought it better to republish them, pretty much as they originally appeared.' (p.x).

Contents
Preface
1. Inspiration

1.1.The Bible is given by inspiration of God.

1.2. The extent to which the Bible is inspired.

'I abhor the “mechanical” theory of inspiration. I dislike the idea that men … were no better than organ pipes … or ignorant secretaries … who wrote by dictation what they did not understand. … I believe that in some marvellous manner the Holy Ghost made use of the reason, the memory, the intellect, the style of thought, and the peculiar mental temperament of each writer of the Scriptures. But how and in what manner this was done I can no more explain than I can the union of two natures, God and man, in the person of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. I only know that there is both a Divine and a human element in the Bible … [which] is really and truly the Word of God. I know the result, but I do not understand the process. … I can no more explain the process than I can explain how the water became wine at Cana, … or how a word raised Lazarus from the dead.' (p.18).

1.3. A “few words of plain application”

'… it is not want of time, but waste of time that ruins souls!' (p.32)

2. Our souls

3. Few saved
4. Our hope
5. Alive or dead
6. Our sins
7. Forgiveness
8. Justification
9. The Cross of Christ
....
19. Perseverance [of the Saints]
 

All quotes etc from Old Paths, 2005 ed, Banner of Truth.