This week’s lesson basically asks, “Was the universe created by atomic force?” Believing this means rejecting the first great commandment and supplanting it with belief in a second cause, which is serving creature rather than Creator, effect rather than Cause; this mentality is symbolized in the allegory of the Prodigal Son, who forsook the Father’s house — the house of first and only Cause or origin — in an attempt to find fulfillment in secondary things.
The prodigal’s reversal and return:
“If to-day the general thought [that is, ‘the people’s idea of God’] embraced the science of being, man’s longevity would increase ten-fold [that is, from 70 years to 700 years], and immortality be brought to light; the years of man will be extended as the belief of intelligent matter is destroyed, until at length a full recognition of Truth shall destroy all sin, sickness, and death. Error will continue seven thousand years, from the time of Adam, its origin. At thae expiration of this period Truth will be generally comprehended, and science roll back the darkness that now hides the eternal sunshine and lift the curtain on Paradise, where earth produces at the command of Intelligence [not by the myth of ‘atomic force’], and Soul, instead of sense, governs man”. (SH, 1875 edition, p. 281-282)
Also: “There is but one primal cause. Therefore there can be no effect from any other cause, and there can be no reality in aught which does not proceed from this great and only cause. Sin, sickness, disease, and death belong not to the Science of being. They are the errors, which presuppose the absence of Truth, Life, or Love.” (SH, 1910 edition p. 207)