Fall

The Fall is the traditional name for the choice in Eden by which the first man and woman left innocence for mortality, and Restoration scripture presents it as a necessary step that Eve took with understanding and that both later blessed. Mormon transhumanists read it as the beginning of humanity's vocation to know and to grow, a vocation that carries the danger of reaching for power before its time.

The Fall names the event of Genesis 3, in which the man and woman ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and were sent out of the garden. Genesis never calls it a fall. The term comes from later Jewish and Christian interpretation, and in the Latin West, following Augustine, it came to mean the corruption of human nature and the inheritance of Adam's guilt by every descendant. Eve, as the first to eat, often bore the larger share of blame. The Easter liturgy of the Western church does call Adam's sin a felix culpa, a "happy fault," because it occasioned so great a Redeemer, yet the fault itself remains a catastrophe in that tradition. Restoration scripture goes further and treats the Fall as part of the plan of God from the beginning.

Naked and Subtle

Genesis tells the story as a contest over wisdom, and it confirms that the fruit gave what the serpent promised.

The chapter turns on a pun. The man and woman were 'arummim, "naked," and unashamed; in the next verse the serpent is 'arum, "subtil," or shrewd. The near-identical sounds could hardly have been lost on Hebrew hearers, and the pun places human innocence and cunning knowledge side by side before the choice is made. The serpent promised, "your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:5). Eve weighed the tree as "good for food," "pleasant to the eyes," and "a tree to be desired to make her wise" (Moses 4:12), and she chose. It is significant that God's own verdict confirms the promise: "Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil" (Genesis 3:22). Read closely, the story records a real gain bought at a real cost, mortality and exile from the presence of God.

Eve's Choice in Restoration Scripture

The Book of Mormon and the Book of Moses present the Fall as the condition of joy, posterity, and redemption, and they give Eve the clearest voice in explaining it.

Lehi teaches that had Adam not transgressed, he and Eve "would have remained in the garden of Eden," and "would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin" (2 Nephi 2:22-23). It has long been recognized that Latter-day Saints reject the doctrine of inherited guilt. Less often noticed is how the Book of Moses closes the story. After leaving the garden, Adam blesses God that "because of my transgression my eyes are opened," and Eve answers with the fuller account: "Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient" (Moses 5:10-11). The first theology of the Fall is a song of praise, and Eve gives its reasons. Latter-day Saint leaders call the choice a transgression, distinguishing it from sin, and they honor Eve's wisdom and courage in making it.

Knowledge Before Its Time

Transhumanists and their critics both read the Fall as a story about enhancement, and Restoration scripture qualifies each reading.

Some transhumanists welcome the fruit as the first enhancement, a seizing of godlike knowledge that every new technology repeats. Some critics of enhancement read Genesis as a warning against exactly that ambition. Restoration doctrine accepts the knowledge as good and intended, yet several Latter-day Saint interpreters suggest that the transgression lay in timing, taking what God meant to give in due order. The tree of life was then guarded until the man and woman were prepared, and Alma explains the interval: "this life became a probationary state; a time to prepare to meet God" (Alma 12:24). Indeed, the pattern bears directly on present technology. Genome editing, artificial intelligence, and neurotechnology open eyes quickly, while the wisdom and institutions to use them grow slowly. Mormon transhumanists accept the vocation Eve chose, to know good and evil and to bear its costs for the sake of posterity. The test for any technology that expands human knowledge or power is whether its makers take it as Eve did, with open eyes, accepting its costs and binding it to covenant and to those who come after, or grasp at the tree of life before they are prepared to bear it.