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"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). Those words, which mark the beginning of our Bibles, are far more significant than perhaps many of us realize. In some ways, they set Christianity apart from almost every other worldview.

Since God doesn't even create the dry land until day three, I take Genesis 1:1 as a summary statement of God’s creation. “The heavens” are another way to describe the universe and everything in it, and “the earth” is another way to describe this planet and everything in it. Therefore we could paraphrase Genesis 1:1 like this, "in the beginning God created everything that exists." And then the rest of chapter 1 tells us the details about how and what God created.

But here’s the bottom line: Genesis 1:1 tells us we can put everything that exists into one of two categories: the Creator or the creation.

Christian Pastor and author Peter Jones says there’s only two basic worldviews: One-ism and Two-ism.[1]

You can visualize it with circles. In one-ism there’s one circle because at deep down everything is part of the same thing. In two-ism, there are two circles. One representing the Creator, and the other representing creation.

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 Two-ism says there are two kinds of existence. God exists eternally. Everything else has a beginning. God is transcendent. He is exalted, above us, beyond us, other than us. This is clearly taught, not only in Genesis 1:1, but throughout the Scriptures.

In fact, when the Bible calls God “holy” it is not first and foremost talking about His morality. The Hebrew word קוֹדֶש [ka-dowsh] means “consecrated,” “set apart,” “different,” or “other.” In other words, God is unlike us. He is different. He is the holy Other, the Transcendent One.

I once heard a preacher named Paul Washer explain it this way: “Which is more like God, an angel in heaven or the bacteria on your toilet seat?” In one sense, the answer is neither. Both the angel in heaven and the bacteria are created things. And God is the transcendent Creator.

One-ism, on the other hand, teaches that there is only one kind of existence. The world is either self-creating or infinite. Everything is made up of the same stuff (matter, spirit, or some combination).

In it’s secular forms, One-ism teaches that there is no spiritual realm. The universe began with a singularity, a big bang, and since then it’s been ever-expanding. Everything that exists is just a different form of matter. This is the worldview of atheists and most agnostics.

This is the view espoused by atheist author Greta Christina in her article entitled “Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing to Do With God.” She writes, “Your lifespan is an infinitesimally tiny fragment in the life of the universe, and . . . there is, at the very least, a strong possibility that when you die, you disappear completely and forever, and that in five hundred years nobody will remember you and in five billion years the Earth will be boiled into the sun.” [2]

In it’s spiritual forms, One-ism teaches that god is everything or that everything is in god. This includes nearly every religion known to humanity. Buddhism, Hinduism, paganism, gnosticism, Greek mythology, Native American religions, Wiccans, and more.

Perhaps you’re thinking, what does any of this have to do with me? I’m never going to encounter this stuff. Not so fast. Consider just a few examples.

In the Disney cartoon Pocahontas, the film’s heroine sings, The rainstorm and the river are my brothers / The heron and the otter are my friends / And we are all connected to each other / In a circle, in a hoop that never ends. That’s a clear example of one-ism.

Or, for those with better film taste, consider Yoda’s comments to Luke in The Empire Strikes Back: "My ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes.”

For both Pocahontas and Yoda, everything that exists is part of the same stuff. Whether matter or spirit, all that exists is united together. There is no distinction between different creatures because there is no distinction between the Creator and the creation.

When One-ism takes hold, no distinctions can last long. Even death itself transforms from an enemy to be feared, avoided, and mourned, to just another part of the great circle of one-ness. Or, as Yoda tells Anakin in Revenge of the Sith—"Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice, for those around you who transform into the force.”

There’s really only two ways to live. You can trust the Creator, or you can worship something He has created. As Paul writes in Romans 1:22-25:

Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

[1] Peter Jones, The Other Worldview: Exposing Christianity’s Greatest Threat (Bellingham, WA: Kirkdale Press, 2015).

[2] Greta Christina, “Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing to Do With God,” in Everything You Know About God Is Wrong: The Disinformation Guide to Religion, ed. Russ Kick (The Disinformation Company, 2007), 182.