The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:14-16)

The Greek word for ‘mind’ is νοῦς nous, which is a loan word, ‘nouse’, in English, colloquially meaning ‘know-how’ or ‘common sense’; this is close to the Biblical sense of νοῦς, being ‘understanding’ and referring more to faculty of reason than the other Greek word for mind, ψυχή, psyche, which is more the containment or vessel of that faculty, and thus is understood to represent the soul.  

Broadly speaking human knowledge of God can be said to be threefold in nature, innate, informed or inspired.  The Bible shows that we may inherently know of God’s existence, need testimony as to His character, but knowledge of God’s mind, our Godly ‘nouse’, falls into last category, that of revelation.  

Firstly, what is innate.

The heavens declare the glory of God,
    and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
    and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
    whose voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out through all the earth,
    and their words to the end of the world.  (Psalm 19:1-4)

Inherently, humankind marvels at the world; we gaze at the universe and wonder; we do not need any other communication from God, as He speaks through his magnificent creation.  The Apostle Paul confirms this:

For what can be known about God is plain to (everyone), because God has shown it to them.For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.  (Romans 1:19-20)

This is why Paul can add that humanity is without excuse for denying Him and ignoring Him.  Especially because not only do we know of God’s existence by the evidence our senses, but through the prompting of our hearts.  It does not need written law to know, for example, murder, lying, stealing and false witness are wrong:

Therefore, you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgement on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practise the very same things.  We know that the judgement of God rightly falls on those who practise such things. Do you suppose, O man – you who judge those who practise such things and yet do them yourself – that you will escape the judgement of God?  (ibid 2:1-3)

In his extensive examination of the human condition, seeking wealth, status, power, attainments, wisdom; having satiated every lust and indulged all comfort, Solomon concludes: 

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgement, with every secret thing, whether good or evil. (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14)

This means that without Scripture or revelation, but through our DNA by being made in God’s likeness (Genesis 1:26), we know not only that God exists but that he intends to judge everyone by the standards He set in each heart, every persons’ good conscience, which is to say everyone knows good from bad. This brings us to the second way we know God.

While we may infer that God is moral, but much of his character cannot be so discerned.  For God’s character is a matter of information, and that exclusively from Bible.  It stands to reason that we cannot know that God is good if our lives are far from good.  Hobbes wrote in a time of war that life of ‘man’ is ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’ (Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan) and that is true of all humanity sundered from God’s presence though an act of rebellion in Eden, thereby declaring war against God.  

Quite rightly, people bewail the circumstances of their lives to God.  Only the most deluded can imagine they are in control of what happens to them, and none dispute that they had control of the circumstances of their birth.  Moreover, as we recognised God’s eternal power, he must necessarily be in charge.  Thus, all understand that the creator of all things is behind every earthly disaster as well as every blessing:

I form light and create darkness,
    I make well-being and create calamity,
    I am the Lord, who does all these things.  (Isaiah 45:7)

To go further and know what this Almighty God is like, Scripture is needed; in other words, this requires the communication through chosen prophets, like Isaiah to be communicated onwards.   We cannot know for instance that that God is good, forgiving, loving and faithful without His testimony – here given to and recorded by Moses: 

‘The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty…’  (Exodus 34:6-7a)

Thus, God’s character was proclaimed to a nation, Israel; and even if they not understand his purposes, they are required to keep the law that God is about to give to Moses.  Obedience will ensure that earthly blessings will release people from the usual lot of humanity, war, famine, pestilence and plague, if not death itself. 

And so to the third way in which we may know God, and gain access to his thoughts. For to understand God’s purposes – that needs inspiration; and not just that of any spirit, but the divine revelation of God’s mind by means of His Spirit.  At last, humanity can understand that God works for the good of some:

And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:27-28)

But not all:

 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. (ibid 8:29-30)

It is an affront to humanity that God’s mind is so partial, but as we know him testify to his goodness and mercy, we are called to have faith that he also wishes that none shall perish or delight in their death but all turn back to Him (2 Peter 3:9 and Ezekiel 18:23).  

This and so much that flows from the mind of God seem to conflict even to the point of contradiction. 

This is best seen in the challenging, extended set of teachings Jesus gave, known collectively as the Sermon on the Mount.  Jesus unfolds the mind of God; even so, his words will not be understood by reason alone but must be the subject of revelation.

An illustration of this comes the day after the feeding of the five thousand (which may have occurred in conjunction with the Sermon on the Mount); consider this rebuke when people pursued Jesus, delivered the day after:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not labour for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you…I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live for ever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (John 6:26-27 & 51)

Isaiah, writing some seven hundred years before Jesus, uses the same metaphor of bread:

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
    and your labour for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
    and delight yourselves in rich food. (ibid 55:2)

This mystery that Jesus himself is God and therefore the visible and tangible projection of the mind of God, was completely beyond them and many thought he was saying they should cannibalise him.

Jesus wishes that we may understand God’s purposes and be fully informed of his Father’s intentions.  Jesus would elevate those who he has chosen to follow him, those that submit to him in faith, to a relationship akin to friendship, saying:

No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.  (John 15:15)

Isaiah also prophesied to the immanence of Jesus, he could not foresee the role of the Holy Spirit indwelling and enlightening, 

‘Seek the Lord while he may be found;
    call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake his way,
    and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him,
    and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord…  (Isaiah 55:6-9)

But God offer reassurance and continues:

‘…so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
    it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
    and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
For you shall go out in joy
    and be led forth in peace…’ (ibid 55:10-12a)

Just prior to the end of his earthly ministry, Jesus tells his disciples:

‘These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you.But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you…’  (John 14:25-26)

Through Jesus and the Holy Spirit comes the ability to abandon earthly thinking for Godly thinking, so we can, in effect, enter the mind of God and begin to make his thoughts our thoughts, and live in his ways.  Thus repentance is not just change of mind, but a swapping of minds:

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2)

That all may have the mind of Christ.