# Grow

Explore how the Mormon Transhumanist Association envisions human growth through the intersection of faith, technology, and our divine potential to flourish.

[Image: In Mark 4:27–28, the seed springs and grows and the tiller “knoweth not how,” because the earth brings forth fruit “of herself.”]

To grow, at its ontological core, is to advance toward full stature and maturity. When examining the biblical lexicon, the Hebrew *tsamach*, meaning “to sprout,” describes the springing forth of the flora in the Garden of Eden, while *gadal*, “to become great,” delineates the maturation of patriarchs and prophets like Isaac and Samuel. In the Greek of the New Testament, *auxanō* encompasses both the organic expansion of a plant and the external power that facilitates that expansion. In contemporary, secularized parlance, growth has been unfortunately reduced to mere physical enlargement or mechanical accretion. The scriptural worldview, however, situates the genesis of the work within the living entity itself, while attributing the ultimate increase exclusively to God.

## The Seed That Grows of Itself

The Savior compared the kingdom of God to a seed whose vitality and internal order operate far beyond the cultivator’s comprehension. As recorded in Mark, the sower sleeps and rises, and “the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear” (Mark 4:27-28). The phrase “of herself” is a translation of *automatos*, the etymological root of “automatic.” This autonomous process follows a divinely inscribed sequence that the agrarian laborer neither dictates nor fully understands.

[Image: Matthew 13:31–32 pictures the mustard seed maturing into a mighty tree where “the birds of the air” lodge in its branches.]

The parable of the mustard seed expands this concept to encompass scale and sanctuary. Though “the least of all seeds,” it “becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof” (Matthew 13:31-32). This imagery unmistakably evokes Ezekiel’s cosmic cedar, under whose canopy “shall dwell all fowl of every wing,” demonstrating that the kingdom’s expansion ultimately provides a habitation for the broader community. The Apostle Paul carefully demarcates the human role in this process: “I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase” (1 Corinthians 3:6-7). Utilizing the transitive form of *auxanō*, “to make grow,” Paul acknowledges that while mortal labor prepares the terrestrial soil and water, the transformative growth remains a strictly divine endowment.

## Wisdom and Stature

Christ’s mortal probation required developmental progression in mind, body, and social standing: he “increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man” (Luke 2:52). Lexicographers trace Luke’s underlying verb, *prokoptō*, to the imagery of a metalsmith hammering material forward, suggesting that such developmental ascent requires diligent, forged effort. The prophet Zechariah explicitly identified the messianic king through the motif of growth: “Behold the man whose name is The Branch; and he shall grow up out of his place” (Zechariah 6:12). The Hebrew text establishes a deliberate phonetic and theological link between the noun *tsemach* and the verb *yitsmach*—wordplay that would have resonated deeply with an ancient Hebrew audience—and clarifies that this growing Branch will “build the temple of the Lord.”

Within the framework of the Restoration, this principle of growth extends both to God’s progeny and to the nature of God Himself. Joseph Smith articulated that an individual must systematically “grow into the principle of revelation.” A subsequent revelation clarifies the trajectory of this divine ascent: “he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day” (D&C 50:24). In 1857, Wilford Woodruff reinforced this dynamic theology, stating that “God himself is increasing and progressing in knowledge, power, and dominion.” While subsequent authorities like Bruce R. McConkie argued against the idea that God learns new truths, contemporary thinkers like Lincoln Cannon draw upon Woodruff’s formulation. Furthermore, the Mormon Transhumanist Association posits that God “grew into divinity” and extends a theological invitation for humanity “to grow the same way.”

## Root and Nourishment

The Book of Mormon narrative identifies nourishment as the absolute prerequisite for growth, using the root system as its primary metric. Alma, utilizing the ancient Near Eastern motif of the word as a seed, counsels his audience to “nourish it with great care, that it may get root.” He sternly warns that a neglected tree “will not get any root,” causing it to wither away under the heat of the sun (Alma 32:37-38). As various Book of Mormon scholars have noted, this discourse fundamentally recapitulates the Edenic narrative, complete with good seed and a springing Tree of Life. In this light, Alma is rhetorically replanting the primordial garden within the heart of each listener, emphasizing that the tree can only survive through the sustenance it draws from beneath the surface.

Contemporary laboratory biology encounters analogous structural limitations. Organoids—clusters of human cells cultivated to simulate organ function—typically stall in their development at approximately three millimeters, roughly the size of a sesame seed. Without a vascular network to supply blood, the innermost cells face starvation. In 2025, researchers at Stanford documented the successful cultivation of heart and liver organoids integrated with their own circulatory vessels. While such scientific endeavor represents planting and watering of the highest order—where researchers meticulously engineer the environmental conditions—the cells ultimately construct themselves according to their own internal programming. 

## Uncontrolled growth

[Image: The entry contrasts scriptural growth with cancer, describing cancer as tissue “emancipated from the regulatory mechanisms” that maintain the body’s proportional harmony.]

When growth deviates from the organizing principles of the larger system, it becomes an existential threat to the host body. Lincoln Cannon notes that technological advancement historically follows an S-curve: progressing slowly, rising steeply as theoretical models and physical tools recursively improve one another, and eventually plateauing. Proponents of a technological Singularity forecast an indefinite extension of this steep, vertical ascent. Holden Karnofsky calculated that a continuous annual economic growth rate of two percent over 8,200 years would require the equivalent of several modern global economies per atom in the known galaxy. In biological terms, cancer is precisely this phenomenon: tissue emancipated from the regulatory mechanisms that maintain proportional harmony within the organism. Edward Abbey appropriately characterized unchecked growth for its own sake as “the ideology of the cancer cell.”

To grow, in the comprehensive scriptural paradigm, is to internalize external elements, establish deep roots, and integrate them into a holistic identity that expands proportionally while providing sanctuary for others. The Savior achieved a simultaneous and perfectly balanced increase in wisdom, stature, and divine favor, recognizing always that the increase was orchestrated by the Father. Carl Youngblood synthesizes transhumanist philosophy as eternal progression contextualized for the present era. Within a scriptural framework, this endeavor demands that our capacity for power never outpace our acquisition of wisdom and our commitment to the covenant community. Any technological or biological enhancement that artificially accelerates a single capacity in a child, while neglecting their holistic maturation, merely enlarges the individual without fostering genuine, integrated growth.

*See also*: [Adversary](/topical-guide/adversary), [Agency](/topical-guide/agency), [Build](/topical-guide/build), [Covenant](/topical-guide/covenant), [Create/Creation](/topical-guide/createcreation), [Evolution](/topical-guide/evolution), [Future Shock](/topical-guide/future-shock), [Immortality](/topical-guide/immortality), [Industry](/topical-guide/industry), [Kingdom](/topical-guide/kingdom), [Learning](/topical-guide/learning), [Longevity](/topical-guide/longevity), [Non-Intervention](/topical-guide/non-intervention), [Restoration](/topical-guide/restoration), [Resurrection](/topical-guide/resurrection), [Technological Singularity](/topical-guide/technological-singularity), [Transhumanism](/topical-guide/transhumanism), [Uplifting](/topical-guide/uplifting), [Vicarious](/topical-guide/vicarious), [Wisdom](/topical-guide/wisdom), [Zion](/topical-guide/zion)