Adam and Eve
Embodiment, lifelong learning, and faithful endurance are essential steps on the path to godhood.
Adam and Eve stand at the beginning of the human story in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic tradition—the first man and woman, placed in a garden, given commandments, and confronted with a choice that would define the conditions of mortal life. A prevalent belief in much of Western Christianity is that their transgression constituted the original sin: a catastrophic fall that corrupted human nature and required divine rescue. Mormon theology reads the same story differently. Rather than viewing Adam and Eve’s transgression as a tragic mistake, Latter-day Saints believe the series of events that culminated in the fall of humanity were necessary, divinely appointed steps in the Plan of Salvation. In essence, humanity fell forward. The fall was a deliberate descent into mortality that made knowledge, growth, suffering, joy, and exaltation possible. Without it, there would have been no children, no experience, no progression—and therefore, no purpose.
This reframing changes everything downstream. Eve’s choice, in particular, is treated in Mormon theology as an act of wisdom rather than weakness. The Book of Moses records Eve declaring that without the transgression she never would have known good and evil, never would have had joy, never would have known the redemption of Christ (Moses 5:11). The Moses 5 account introduces a pattern that recurs throughout Latter-day Saint scripture, in which opposition, risk, and moral agency are the conditions under which intelligences develop toward godhood.
The Fall as a Transhumanist Origin Story
Read through a Mormon transhumanist lens, the story of Adam and Eve is really an account of humanity’s progenitors seeing through the fatal allure of Eden. They essentially traded the comforts of paradise for the crucible of opposition, recognizing mortality as a vital step toward godhood. In return, they were promised a path back to something far greater than what they had left behind—but only after mustering the courage to step out of their comfort zone and venture into uncharted territory.
Made in the Image of Gods Who Progressed
And the first of all men have I called Adam, which is many.
Mormon cosmology places Adam and Eve within a broader framework in which God himself, as an embodied being, progressed to godhood through experience, growth, and gradual development. The divine image, in this tradition, is a clear indication of what humanity could become. Adam and Eve, as the first to walk the path of mortal progression, serve as archetypes of every human being who accepts the terms of embodied existence: the pain and the glory alike. The endowment ritual in Latter-day Saint practice treats the Adam and Eve narrative as a template for the individual’s own progression through mortality toward exaltation. The archetypal nature of the name Adam is also emphasized in scripture, where we learn that “Adam” is a placeholder for early humanity.
Embodiment, autonomy, and the Ethics of Creation
Adam and Eve are presented as mortal beings formed from the earth, capable of hunger, pleasure, labor, and procreation, rather than as disembodied minds working through an abstract moral problem. Their union and the commandment to be fruitful, multiply and replenish the earth, frame individual autonomy and family as pathways to a fulness of joy. Mormon transhumanism inherits this emphasis on embodiment and tends to resist visions of technological transcendence that treat the body as a limitation to be discarded. At the same time, the tradition remains open to the enhancement and transformation of embodied life, since it regards mortality as a provisional condition.
Adam, Eve, and the Long Work of Redemption
In Moses 5, Eve’s decision is not viewed as a slip into endless ruin but as the first honest step into a world where joy and knowledge can truly be obtained.
Adam and Eve began the work of redemption almost immediately after the Fall. According to the Book of Moses, they called upon God, received the gospel, and were commanded to work out their own salvation and teach their descendants the ways of holiness (Moses 5). Rather than waiting passively for grace, they actively engaged in the atoning process that their transgression made necessary. Mormon transhumanism views this as a foundational principle: humanity is not waiting for a rescue, but is explicitly called to drive its own transformation and the transformation of the world. The work that began in a garden east of Eden—the long, difficult, joyful labor of becoming—continues wherever intelligence acts in faith, courage, and hope.
See also: Agency, Atonement, Covenant, Eden, Fall, Family, Redemption, Resurrection, Sin, Theosis