Where Do Dinosaurs Fit in the Creation Story?

let me give a broad overview and it's going to be from the point of view of apologetics what I mean by that I'm not going to try to give the one right Christian Pentecostal Apostolic answer first of all this involves a lot of science I'm not a scientist I you know I I I do have a major in mathematical Sciences I studied College physics but I'm not a scientist and probably most my audience are not scientists and I'm certainly not and so we're not get into technical things but I'm coming from the point of view of apologetics what do I mean by that apologetics mean is a defense of the Gospel so first of all my audience would be what if somebody doesn't believe in God and a big stumbling block is well the Bible can't be true Christianity can't be true because of the dinosaurs so I'm going to try to answer why you can believe in the Bible and I think that's a real thing I think a lot of people feel that way so I don't have to explain everything I just have to give them remove a stumbling block to Faith my second audience I'm particularly concerned about is a teenager young adult maybe high school college student that says I do believe but now this is bringing a doubt that I can't get out of my mind and so again I want to remove the stumbling block so I want to refer you to my book anchor points it's a book of apologetics and it does discuss this issue I don't really talk about the dinosaurs but I talk about creation versus evolution and what's particularly helpful I have a list of books from a most of them from a Christian perspective uh that goes more in depth into various questions like this so but let me make some general statements because I don't want to be misunderstood and we need to be absolutely clear so I would start by saying which I do explain in my book anchor points atheism isn't really credible for many reasons uh one reason is the origin of the universe Evolution or atheism doesn't explain that at all so I think there's a very strong case that there must be a God who created us and there must be a God who fine-tuned the universe and designed the universe for human life and even the origin of human life the origin of human consciousness the origin of human morality human spirituality our inner moral spiritual nature that has to come from God so we start with the absolute belief there is one true Living God the god of the Bible atheism is incredible then that leads to the Bible is the word of God it's profoundly and fundamentally true it's authoritative infallible inherent and I've used this in a previous podcast I think it's worth saying again because when I've talked to as a pastor for example to people that have this concern I say look let's step back we can argue over the details of evolution science whatever I give you books to read but fundamentally the Bible tells us something that nobody else will tell us no other book of of science philosophy religion unless it's based of the Bible will tell us your real problem is all humans are sinners but we know that's true in our own lives the Bible tells us the answer we need a savior so if the Bible is the only book that really tells me the truth about the most important thing in my life then I can trust it on things I don't know about like creation I wasn't there or uh the future I'm not there yet you know eternity so I'm going to trust it and believe it on the things that I have no access to independently because I know it's true in the things I do have access to I know that it diagnoses me accurately when nobody else will I know faith in Jesus Christ is real I know receiving the holy ghost is real I know speaking in tongues is real so everything that I can that possible for me to verify the Bible on I know it is true in my own life so therefore I can trust it on these other statements now I would also say the Bible is not written as a scientific textbook so when we try to parse it for science we're misusing it uh the Bible is absolutely true but you have to ask what is it trying to tell us now and also think about this the Bible was written ancient times it has to be un had to be understandable to people people of all ages ancient people as well as modern so if it was written with modern scientific accuracy it would have been incomprehensible to the people to whom it was originally given uh it wouldn't even have made sense and maybe if we if if we're still around 100 years from now there'll be new developments and science if we try to force the Bible to speak on every issue we're concerned about now it might seem to be wrong to somebody from 100 years now uh and sometimes we say well we need to take the Bible literally I I agree with that but then that's a long discussion of what does literal interpretation mean I think the better term is grammatical historical interpretation I actually have a book called Understanding God's word which goes into that but it sounds simple but it's not so simple like for example the Bible talks about the four corners of the earth well if you're just going to say well I'm going to read that literally the scientific implication is the the the World is Flat and so science tells us world is round so therefore the Bible is false therefore I don't believe in the Bible well that's trying to make the Bible say something it wasn't intended to say it wasn't trying to tell you about cosmology it wasn't trying to tell you about geology it wasn't trying to tell you uh about astronomy or the scientific definition of the Earth or geology so to force it to say something it's not meant to say is to misunderstand and misuse so we do have to be careful that when we read Genesis 1 and too we're looking at from our modern perspective or maybe a scientific perspective well that's not the way to read the Bible anyway so it's easy to get get off track but under any explanation first of all we need to understand everything in the universe was created by God that's absolute number two God specifically created humans Adam and Eve um that story shows that they didn't just pop into existence or evolve into existence God created human human beings now one thing when you talk about because you talk about dinosaurs immediately the issue comes up the the age of the Earth and some and and and so on one thing that you can't prove but you can't disprove and it does it at least it's worth talking about and that is when God created the universe and we created the Earth and we created Adam and Eve in some ways he created a mature creation So Adam was let if you would have met Adam one minute after creation he would have probably been a you'd probably say he's 21 years of age uh you do a medical exam you look at his teeth he's got wisdom teeth so obviously he has to be a fully grown adult he has to live so many years he's really only one minute old if you chop down a tree in the Garden of Eden it would probably have rings in it and you count the Rings well that tree has to be 50 years old well actually it's one minute old um and you could see mountains and you could see Canyons well under normal processes the mountains were gradually lifted up through plag tectonics or volcanic action and canyons were eroded through uh water and yes that that and we can see that happening now we can see Islands created in the ocean through volcanic activity we can see mountains eroding we can see valleys you know and all that and so the process is going on but did God create everything neutral and all had to start or did he create it at some point as a fully mature Earth so you could even extend this I'm not sure I agree with this but you could say well yeah animals are dying and being buried and fossilized and petrified and so we find petrified wood dinosaur bones but did all that have to start from scratch or did God create coal in the ground diamonds in the ground maybe even petrified wood already petrified animals already dead and buried you know he could have you can't prove it you can't disprove it so I don't know that may not be philosophically satisfying but one answer is the mature Earth okay going beyond that um there basically three different answers have been given the first one is called theistic Evolution well God used Evolution uh as a means of creating humans so we could accept everything that science says geology biology everything else cosmology I think that uh that requires too loose of interpretation in the Bible so I want to be very clear I do not obviously I do not accept atheistic Evolution but I also think even theistic Evolution while from an apologetic point of view if someone says well I want to believe this can I be saved well yes you can repent of your sins you can be baptized in Jesus name you can receive the Holy Ghost you can live a holy life I'm not going to spend my time arguing with you before I try to get you to accept the gospel however I don't I think that has too many flaws theologically and even scientifically so if you want a very detailed book that is a critique not a defense but a critique it is actually called theistic Evolution and the editor is JP Morland m o r e l a n d at all so it goes to great detail it's a great resource if you want to study that the second answer that's sometimes given is the ancient Earth and that's basically to say look we can accept the idea of um the earth and the universe or millions of years above we we accept all the findings of science cosmology astronomy geology biology etc etc but we do believe God specially created humans we don't believe they evolved um you know we we accept the Genesis account uh but we believe there's an ancient Earth and one way to look at it is um if you read Genesis 1:1 in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth okay and that could be a summary statement or that could be a comprehensive statement and then verse two the Earth was without form and void Darkness was upon the face of the deep the spirit of God moved on the face of the waters some have said wait a minute that sounds like something went wrong with creation or that sounds like creation was incomplete so some would say well verse two is just starting to fill in the blanks other would say no there was a a perfect creation originally and then something happened there's a big gap and now you're talking about much later of recreation or revising or of maybe focusing on the Garden of Eden specifically and Adam and Eve Etc some will even say now you know some point before the creation of humans Lucifer sinned and became the devil and took onethird of the angels with him that brought some kind of Chaos in the universe so maybe these ages we're talking about something happened in that time uh and so uh there's there's some good books I think they're very thoughtful that would help you discussed these John Collins Genesis 1-4 John Linux seven days that divide the world uh by the way a book that gives you kind of overview of all Christian perspectives is Gerald raal R auu uh mapping the origins debate and he dis he discusses six major uh options that different Christian theologians and writers have considered so if you take the older view then yes there there be time for the dinosaurs and uh formation of coal and diamonds and oil and you know using the standard geological and biological explanations all that could fit in there's really no conflict uh if you look at it that way uh then the third option is the young Earth theory and a good book for that is Scott Hughes H the collapse of evolution and actually uh one of our own authors years ago a book I actually edited and it's still in print through the Pentecostal Publishing House is uh Ricky pavu P A vlu Evolution when fact became fiction and it basically says well the the all the evidence for the millions of years of uh are are mistaken they're flawed because of various reasons um that these methods assume a uniformitarian process but if there was a sudden creation and God could have created many things maturely and if there was a sudden flood that totally changed the geology and biology then that could have count what would normally take millions of years could have been condensed into thousands of years and so you could have dinosaurs being created at the same time as Adam and Eve some of them dying in the flood maybe some of the young being put in the ark and surviving the flood but then later going extinct just like many other animals have gone extinct and interestingly The Book of Job talks about Behemoth and Leviathan it's very possible that Behemoth would it would seem to fit a Plante eating dinosaur and Leviathan would fit some kind of a maybe not a dinosaur but ancient sea monster sea creature and so interestingly even old Earth and young Earth creationists will say it's this is likely the Bible's explanation of or reference and even if they had died by the time of uh job still an people had discovered bones of mammoths and dinosaurs and so they could know there were ancient monsters like this some have said these are modern um the hippopotamus and the crocodile but you can read it for yourself it's you would it would have to be symbolic in some ways to make it fit so you could see what you think there but that could be biblical reference to dinosaurs so the bottom line is you don't have to deny the reality of dinosaurs now one more thing which is sometimes controversial so the young Earth creation say the problem with old Earth creationism it seems to indicate that dinosaurs died before humans but Romans 5 says by Adam sin death neared the world so I think the very direct application is humans became subject to death humans are special creation of God and whatever God did with other creation he had a plan for us to continue living in Def only until at some future time we would be glorified but because we sin that was cut short we're subject to physical death now does that mean there was no death in the universe well then you have to think okay well if there were no animal deaths then carnivores had to be recreated after uh on the they had to be an eighth day of creation or something to change them into carnivores but you're not that's not so so you should you could say okay so no animals died it was only but then could plants die um that would be death did seeds die that would be death or did insects die that you know there were insectivores but not only that even herbivores Plante eating animals they typically consume all kinds of insects when they're eating plants so right so are we going to say no insects couldn't die before Adam sin and even go beyond that the greatest the biggest animal that's ever lived bigger than any dinosaurs is alive today the blue whale well it's a baleen whale which means it strains the water and eats Krill which are very tiny crustations so did they die if if not the blue whale had to have a totally different chemistry I don't know what kind of plants it was eating in the bottom of the ocean so my point is not to ridicule but just to say it it you if you just read the Bible from the point of view of When It Was Written you might say well young Earth is is the only option just like the four corners of the Earth but it sounds simple but when you dig into the biology wait a minute so the blue whale couldn't have really really been a blue whale it had to eat I don't know what it ate the insect of Wars could eat insects herbivores had to strain out all insects uh plants well could plants die or or could plants not die you know and so you know carnivores you know we don't really believe they evolved after Adam sin but do we believe that God had to rest on the seventh day and the eighth day he had to say wait a minute Adam sin I got to change all these animals you know maybe that's what he did so but what I'm just saying is if you feel very strongly in a certain way there is option to say um the Earth is Young and the dinosaurs live contemporaneously with ancient man but the measurements of of a mill millions of years are off because of VAR scientific reasons the dinosaurs some probably died during the flood some were brought into the ark maybe as young but eventually became extinct in in human history or you could say well we believe there's an ancient Earth and this could have been a pre-adamic um time period and why would God have spent millions of years to do that well I don't know God has his own God's Eternal I I wonder if he's had other universes how many millions of other universes I I don't know could there have been other races could could have God deal you know I don't know what God's plans are but even if the only reason would be to give us coal and oil you know from our point of view that would be a good reason to do all that stuff so anyway uh I may have offended someone who's very dogmatic but my point is basically say if you are a non-Christian wondering if it's possibly the Bible or if you are a young Christian wondering if you can study in school and still believe in the Bible absolutely yes and I think some would feel comfortable saying we accept all the evidence of science except you know as far as ancient Earth geology biology all that's not our problem but we do believe God is the one who created us and not some evolutionary process and so we can accept everything that Genesis says is is very real and profoundly and you know literally true and then there are others would say well the only way I could see that is to say there was no death and therefore you could only think of a young creation and therefore you'd have to come up basically you have to refute all the findings of secular signs in favor of um having a story A Narrative of uh the dinosaurs living and dying in the time frame of U beginning with Adam and Eve so uh I do believe that Christians have good answers I believe that we absolutely must uphold the priority of scripture but I do think we don't have to see science as our enemy we can see science uh as understood from a scriptural point of view as very beneficial and helpful in helping create the life that we live today but the bottom line is uh you know nothing disturbs our faith in God what we know you and by the way it would be nice to have all the answers to all the questions but actually to live for God you have to live by faith yeah so there going to be some answers that we don't know but we trust God