Dinosaurs And Christianity; Is There A Problem?

Dinosaurs existed many many years ago. I say 'many many years ago' because there is an ongoing debate about the age of our earth and thereby the time or the era when dinosaurs existed.

Broadly, Christians subscribe to either of the two creation models: (1) The Young Earth Creationism and (2) The Old Earth Creationism. If you believe that the age of the earth is approximately 6000 years old, then you are a young earth creationist. But if you believe that the earth was created millions of years ago, then you are an old earth creationist.

The young earth creationist or those who believe that the age of the earth is approximately 6000 years would claim that the dinosaurs existed within the past thousand years. But an old earth proponent – a Christian who believes that the earth is millions of years old – would believe that the Dinosaurs existed millions of years ago.

Is there a problem? Christian apologist, J. Warner Wallace, articulates this dilemma, "Perhaps the most frequent questions asked of me related to the age of the earth are these: What do Christians say about dinosaurs? How do Christians account for dinosaurs and the death we observe in the fossil record? Doesn't the very existence of dinosaurs in the fossil record, contradict the claims of the Bible? There's an impression, even amongst Christians, dinosaurs present the Christian community with a true dilemma. There seems to be something contradictory about the archeological record of dinosaur life, and the biblical record of creation..."1

A systematic study of this subject should encompass a study of the claims and the counter-claims of the young and the old earth creationists. But because of a self-imposed word restriction for every essay that I publish for your consumption, I shall only consider the response to the dinosaur dilemma from the perspective of the young earth creationists.

Since this view completely disagrees with the evolutionists, I believe it would be more interesting to study the arguments of the proponents of young age creationism with respect to the dinosaur dilemma. (On the other hand, the old age creationist's view of the dinosaurs would largely agree with that of the evolutionists.)

"Answers In Genesis" is a Christian apologetics ministry that believes in the young earth creationism. They believe that the existence of dinosaurs does not disprove the Bible or that of Historic Christianity. Here's their response to the existence of dinosaurs:2

Did Dinosaurs Really Exist?

Dinosaurs certainly did roam the Earth in the ancient past! Fossils of dinosaurs have been found all over the world, and their bones are displayed in museums for all to see. Scientists have been able to reconstruct many of their skeletons, so we know much about how they may have looked.

When Were Dinosaurs Found?

The story of their discovery began back in the 1820s, when Gideon Mantell, an English doctor, found some unusual teeth and bones in a quarry. Dr Mantell realized there was something very different about these animal remains, and believed that he had found an entirely new group of reptiles. By 1841, about nine types of these different reptiles had been uncovered, including two called Megalosaurus and Iguanodon.

At this time, a famous British scientist, Dr Richard Owen, coined the name "Dinosauria," meaning "terrible lizard," for this is what the huge bones made him think of.

When Did Dinosaurs Live?

The story we have all heard from movies, television, newspapers, and most magazines and textbooks is that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago. According to evolutionists, the dinosaurs "ruled the Earth" for 140 million years, dying out about 65 million years ago. However, scientists do not dig up anything labeled with those ages. They only uncover dead dinosaurs (i.e., their bones), and their bones do not have labels attached telling how old they are. The idea of millions of years of evolution is just the evolutionists' story about the past. No scientist was there to see the dinosaurs live through this supposed dinosaur age. In fact, there is no proof whatsoever that the world and its fossil layers are millions of years old. No scientist observed dinosaurs die. Scientists only find the bones in the here and now, and because many of them are evolutionists, they try to fit the story of the dinosaurs into their view.