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 2:14

Eastern Fathers

John Chrysostom

"The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit." For as with these eyes no man could learn the things in the heavens; so neither the soul unaided the things of the Spirit. And why speak I of the things in heaven? It receives not even those in earth, all of them. For beholding afar off a square tower, we think it to be round; but such an opinion is mere deception of the eyes: so also we may be sure, when a man by means of his understanding alone examines the things which are afar off much ridicule will ensue. …

Homily on 1 Corinthians 7 ↗

Theophylact of Ohrid

The natural man is one who relies in everything on his own reasoning and does not think that he needs higher help, and one who does not wish to accept anything by faith, and considers everything that cannot be proved to be foolishness. So then, the one who thinks that everything occurs by the natural order, and admits nothing supernatural, he calls natural, that is, governed by nature: for his soul occupies itself only with the economy of nature. …

Commentary on 1 Corinthians ↗

Irenaeus

Those persons, then, who possess the earnest of the Spirit, and who are not enslaved by the lusts of the flesh, but are subject to the Spirit, and who in all things walk according to the light of reason, does the apostle properly term "spiritual," because the Spirit of God dwells in them. Now, spiritual men shall not be incorporeal spirits; but our substance, that is, the union of flesh and spirit, receiving the Spirit of God, makes up the spiritual man. …

Against Heresies (Book V, Chapter 8) ↗

Western Saints

Thomas Aquinas

Then when he says, But the sensual man, he assigns the reason for the above: first, he shows why spiritual things must not be entrusted to sensual men; secondly, why they should be entrusted to spiritual men (v. 15). As to the first he does two things: first, he gives the reason; secondly, he explains it (v. 14). The reasoning is this: No one should be taught what he cannot grasp. But sensual men cannot grasp spiritual things. Therefore, they should not be taught to them. …

Commentary on 1 Corinthians ↗