Question
Dear Gramps,
I am in Ohio on my mission and my companion and myself have been in debate. Did dinosaurs ever exist on this earth? I believe they did. My companion believes they never existed, but were simply part of the matter used to form the earth. Thank you so much.
Elder Chantry
Answer
Dear Elder Chantry,
I’m with you. God did not create this earth by some mechanical process. He did not use some celestial back hoe to scrape up material from here and there, and somehow mold it together into an earth. God is all powerful. And the power of God is in the words that He utters. When He speaks, matter obeys. We read in Moses 4:30,
For as I, the Lord God, liveth, even so my words cannot return void, for as they go forth out of my mouth they must be fulfilled.
The account of the creation of this earth is not an allegorical recitation, but a true declaration of fact—
And I, God, called the light Day; and the darkness, I called Night; and this I did by the word of my power, and it was done as I spake. (Moses 2:5)
And again, I, God, said: Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and it was so, even as I spake (Moses 2:6).
And I, God, made the firmament and divided the waters….. and it was so even as I spake.(Moses 2:7)
And they (the Gods) said: Let there be light; and there was light. (Abr 4:3)
And the Gods said: Let us prepare the earth to bring forth grass; the herb yielding seed; the fruit tree yielding fruit, after his kind, whose seed in itself yieldeth its own likeness upon the earth; and it was so, even as they ordered. (Abr 4:11)
For behold, by the power of his word man came upon the face of the earth, which earth was created by the power of his word. Wherefore, if God being able to speak and the world was, and to speak and man was created, O then, why not able to command the earth, or the workmanship of his hands upon the face of it, according to his will and pleasure?(Jacob 4:9)
So you see that God created the earth by speaking, not by shoveling. So if we find fossilized bones of dinosaurs, we may have confidence that they are the remains of animals that once lived on this earth. Of course, one would next ask how they could have been on the earth millions of years ago when the scriptures tell us that
I, the Lord God, formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul, the first flesh upon the earth, the first man also (Moses 3:7).
In other words, Adam preceded all other life forms on the earth. Now everyone has a choice. They may either believe the words of God as recorded in the Holy Scriptures or they may choose to believe the words of the archaeologists and palaeontologists who have only one method for establishing a prehistoric time line–the radioactive Potassium-Argon method. This method has been found to be so inaccurate as to be counted as completely unreliable. Further, time as we know it was not established until after Adam’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden. So we have no idea, nor can we establish from either scientific or revealed information any dates associated with the prehistoric past. So we recommend that one be calm and patient, and not to be overly concerned about such items that have not yet been revealed by God to man.
Gramps
