Fathers

1 Corinthians 2

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When I came to you, brothers, I didn’t come with excellence of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. My speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith wouldn’t stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. We speak wisdom, however, among those who are full grown, yet a wisdom not of this world nor of the rulers of this world who are coming to nothing. But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the wisdom that has been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds for our glory, which none of the rulers of this world has known. For had they known it, they wouldn’t have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, “Things which an eye didn’t see, and an ear didn’t hear, which didn’t enter into the heart of man, these God has prepared for those who love him.” But to us, God revealed them through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For who among men knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the man, which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of God, except God’s Spirit. But we received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might know the things that were freely given to us by God. We also speak these things, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual things. Now the natural man doesn’t receive the things of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to him, and he can’t know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual discerns all things, and he himself is judged by no one. “For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct him?” But we have Christ’s mind.

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What the Fathers say

1 Corinthians 2:11

Eastern Fathers

Theophylact of Ohrid

He shows the perfect knowledge of the Spirit in the subsequent words as well. For just as the human spirit knows what is in man, so, he says, the Spirit of God knows what belongs to God. From this we learn, among other things, that the Spirit is not of a different essence compared to the Father, just as the spirit of man is not different compared to the man.

Commentary on 1 Corinthians ↗

Western Saints

Gregory the Dialogist

As it is written, For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? On what principle is it said here, Behold I know your thoughts? But the spirit of a man is then unknown to another, when it is not shewn forth either by words or deeds. For whereas it is written, Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them; it is by the thing that is done outwardly that whatever lies concealed within is brought to sight. …

Morals on the Book of Job, Book 15 ↗

Thomas Aquinas

Then when he says, for what person knows, he proves what he had said of the Spirit of God by a comparison with man's spirit, saying: For what person knows a man's thoughts, i.e., which are hidden in his heart, but the spirit of the man, which is in him, i.e., the intellect? Hence the things which lie within cannot be seen. But he says significantly, what man, lest he seem to exclude God as knowing them. For Jer (17:9) says: "The heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it? …

Commentary on 1 Corinthians ↗

Bonaventure

When our mind has been filled with all these intellectual lights, it is inhabited by the divine Wisdom as a house of God, having been made a daughter of God, a spouse and friend; having been made a member of Christ the Head, a sister and co-heir; having been made no less a temple of the Holy Spirit, founded through faith, elevated through hope, and dedicated to God through holiness of mind and body. …

Itinerarium Mentis in Deum, Chapter 4 ↗