# Earth

Explore the Mormon Transhumanist perspective on Earth—our sacred home, its stewardship, and humanity’s role in transforming the world through faith and technology.

[Image: Rooted in the ancient linguistic connection between *‘adam’* and *‘adamah’*, scripture presents the planet as more than an ephemeral stage, portraying the earth itself as a living entity.]

The Hebrew Bible uses two distinct words for earth: *'erets*, which refers to a specific land or the globe as a whole, and *'adamah*, which denotes the ground or cultivated soil. Readers of Genesis have long highlighted the deliberate wordplay in creation: when "the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground" (Genesis 2:7), the human (*'adam*) is created directly from the ground (*'adamah*). Ancient Hebrew listeners would have instantly recognized this deep linguistic connection between humanity's name and its material origin. A common reading treats the earth as a temporary stage—a physical scaffold to be discarded when the redeemed depart for a distant, immaterial heaven. Restoration scripture carries the ancient Hebrew wordplay to its logical conclusion: the earth, like the human formed from its dust, lives, suffers, dies, and undergoes resurrection to become the eternal home of the faithful.

## Materials Organized

In the Book of Abraham, a divine figure "like unto God" declares to a premortal council, "We will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell" (Abraham 3:24). Latter-day Saints view creation as the structuring of pre-existing matter, a doctrine that endows the physical world with inherent, lasting value. This same account reiterates the mandate to "replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion" (Moses 2:28). While the Hebrew *kabash* ("subdue") can imply subjugation, Latter-day Saint commentators argue that dominion derives from the Latin *dominus*, the master of a household responsible for the care of all within it. An 1831 revelation defines the true boundaries of that stewardship: the earth’s bounty was created "to be used, with judgment, not to excess, neither by extortion" (D&C 59:20).

## The Mother of Men

The Pearl of Great Price portrays the earth as a living, sentient entity that groans under the weight of human corruption.

In Enoch's vision, the planet speaks directly: "Wo, wo is me, the mother of men; I am pained, I am weary, because of the wickedness of my children…. When will my Creator sanctify me, that I may rest…?" (Moses 7:48). The title echoes Genesis, where humanity emerges directly from the soil (*'adamah*). The earth mourns the violence and transgression across human history, receiving in response the Lord's promise of eventual renewal. Latter-day Saint environmental writers view this personification as a reminder that the earth absorbs the physical consequences of human conduct, imposing a moral obligation on its inhabitants to take their ecological stewardship seriously. Earth-system science measures these consequences across the planet’s atmosphere, oceans, cryosphere, and biosphere, tracking shifts like global average temperatures exceeding 1.5 °C above preindustrial levels—a warming primarily driven by human emissions.

## Renewal to Paradisiacal Glory

Latter-day Saint theology answers the earth’s cry for relief with an explicit promise of cosmic redemption. Revelations affirm that "the earth abideth the law of a celestial kingdom, for it filleth the measure of its creation," and though "it shall die, it shall be quickened again" so that "the righteous shall inherit it" (D&C 88:25–26). Read together, these passages trace an earth history that parallels the trajectory of human life. Early Church leaders taught that the earth underwent baptism by water during the Flood, will undergo baptism by fire and the Holy Spirit, and will experience death and resurrection into a glorified state. The tenth Article of Faith names the culmination of this process: "the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory" (Articles of Faith 1:10). 

Etymologically rooted in the Persian term for a walled garden (*paradaiza*)—the word the Septuagint uses for Eden—this renewal returns the earth to its Edenic perfection. Mormon transhumanists view this promised restoration as a prophetic mandate that science and technology are ordained to help achieve, paired with a duty to mitigate the risks of emerging power. 

## Dominion Over the Sky

As technologies acquire planet-scale influence, stewardship becomes a governance question: who decides the fate of the global commons?

Geoengineering proposals—such as injecting reflective aerosol particles into the stratosphere to mimic the cooling effect of Mount Pinatubo’s 1991 eruption—demonstrate both our expanding reach and our profound vulnerabilities. While solar radiation management could reduce global temperatures, it risks altering regional precipitation and demands indefinite maintenance, which would invite severe termination shock if halted abruptly. Crucially, it raises political and ethical dilemmas over who holds the authority to set the planet's thermostat. Unilateral control transforms stewardship into the very extortion scripture forbids, where a powerful few manipulate global systems while vulnerable populations bear the unintended consequences.

*See also*: [City](/topical-guide/city), [Geoengineering](/topical-guide/geoengineering), [Nature/Natural](/topical-guide/naturenatural), [Solarpunk](/topical-guide/solarpunk), [World](/topical-guide/world)