νοῦς (nü's): New Creational Life opened up to us through Jesus in the Holy Spirit vs The Vanity of the Disintegrated, Fallen Mind

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νοῦς (nü's) 

Derived from a base of γινώσκω (ge-no'-sko), which means to “come to know, understand, perceive.”

The dictionary meaning, then, could be the “faculty by which we perceive, understand, judge and synthesize.”

24 occurrences in the NT

1x only in the Gospels

21x in the Pauline Epistles

2x in Revelation

Summary Synthesis (OT, NT, Church Fathers)

The eye of the soul which operates within the spiritual realm, which is to say, the eternal realm. 

In this frame it can receive the Eternal Word by the inner-working of the Eternal Spirit through which God Himself is revealed and spiritual knowledge implanted. 

This type of knowledge, however, is given expression not merely in words but in the φρονέω of a life lived. It operates not in the static but rather in the dynamic realm of experience. “The mind simply makes thinkable the things which man’s nous lives experientially.” 

As such, its operations, though using words and employing human intelligence, ultimately move beyond them both with its goal being nothing less than union with Christ through the Spirit. 

Before we begin the word study, a further bit of background may be helpful in directing us to a fuller understanding of what is a very dynamic word which has had a long, important tradition in the development, particularly, of Eastern Christianity. It can be summarized as follows:

Before the Fall

Man’s nous perceived God and the word he spoke rightly expressed the experience of the nous. It saw reality correctly and its intelligence ordered it rightly. 

After the Fall

With sin came the disintegration and death of the soul. The entire inner world of the soul, now cut off from God, could no longer function. His nous became darkened and progressively confused by the passions (Rom 1:28 παρέδωκεν αὐτοὺς ὁ θεὸς εἰς ἀδόκιμον νοῦν). 

His words, unable to express the experience of the nous, became identified with the mind. [In the West, we might see this as the ascendancy of Reason in the Enlightenment Era.]

“Thus intelligence was raised above the nous and now holds sway in fallen man. In fact this is the sickness of the word and intelligence. The intelligence is over-nourished, it has been raised to a greater position than the nous and has captured the word.”

The result of this change is that:
“Arrogance, with all the energies of egoism” begins raging in the nous. Pride, beginning to operate in the plane of thought and spirit, “arrogates priority for itself, battling for complete mastery, and its principle weapon is the reasoning mind.” With words alone, apart from “inner transformation and purification,” the mind seeks in vain to know God.

[Is this not where we are in the modern Western church, now situated in the Post-Enlightenment, Hypermodernist landscape?]

As it has been further summarized,

“It is a fact that when man's spiritual being is concentrated on and in the mind, reason takes over and he becomes blind to anything that surpasses him and ends by seeing himself as the divine principle. The intellectual imagination here reaches its utmost limits and, at the same time, it falls into the darkest night.”

How then is the nous redeemed from this passage into such gnostic dualism of mind and thought cut off from the reality of the experience of the body in union with Christ? How is it turned from the vanity of the all-encompassing self-life back towards God?

The answer given: “True knowledge of God is founded on humility” that comes to us through Christ in the Spirit (I Cor 1:16-31; 2:1-16; Mt 5:3,8; II Jn 9; I Cor 8:3).

Summary Synthesis (Gospels)

The nous first occurs in Christ’s appearances to the disciples after His Crucifixion, where He progressively reveals to them how the cosmos has been recreated through His Death and Resurrection, how Heaven and earth have been joined together, Spirit and flesh integrated and God and Man eternally united.

Detailed Analysis (Gospels)

Its first and only occurrences in the Gospels comes in the final chapter of Luke, when the Risen Christ appears to his disciples. The verses directly before speak of Jesus’ appearance to the two on the road to Emmaus. Recognizing that they are visibly distraught (σκυθρωποί: from σκυθρός + ὀπτάνομαι, Lk 24:17), Jesus inquires as to why. Once they relate the events first of Christ’s Betrayal and Crucifixion, then of the mysterious reports of His Resurrection (24:19-24), His tone all of the sudden changes and he flashes out in a rebuke:

“O foolish ones (ἀνόητοι: from ἀ + νοέω, lit. “one without a nous to understand”) and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!

Was it not necessary (ἔδει) for Christ to suffer (παθεῖν τὸν Χριστὸν) these things and then to enter into His glory (καὶ εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ)?” And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded (διηρμήνευεν: from διά + ἑρμηνεύω [hermaneu, from which we derive the word, hermaneutics], “unfolded the meaning”) to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Lk 24:27).

Absolutely astonished at His Words, the two disciples now beg Him to stay at their house. When they sit down for dinner Jesus “takes the bread (λαβὼν τὸν ἄρτον) and blesses it” (εὐλόγησεν, cf. Mt 26:26; Mk 14:22; Lk 22:19). Then when He “broke the bread (κλάσας) and gave it to them, their eyes were immediately opened, and they knew (ἐπέγνωσαν) Him”; yet He “vanished out of their sight” (24:30-31).

Now even further astonished yet filled up with true knowledge, they say to one another “Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?” (24:32). Rising up “that very hour”, they then make the seven mile trek back to Jerusalem where they find the disciples huddled together and declare to them “The Lord is risen indeed” (ἠγέρθη ὁ κύριος, 24:33-34).

While they are testifying to them of His appearance, He suddenly shows up “in the middle of them saying Peace be unto you” (Εἰρήνη ὑμῖν, 24:36).

The Crucified Lord is now in their midst.

Their human response is that they are “terrified (πτοηθέντες) and filled with fear (ἔμφοβοι), supposing that they had seen a spirit (ἐδόκουν πνεῦμα θεωρεῖν).” Into this fallen human mindset, Jesus must reveal a totally New Paradigm (a metanoia, we might say.)

In doing so, He perceives the trouble of their minds (τεταραγμένοι), staring at Him in terror as they seek to understand this New Reality through fallen reasoning and human calculations (διαλογισμοὶ, 24:38, cf. Lk 5:22, 6:8, 9:46-47).

His first step is that to show them the nail prints in His hands and feet, declaring, “I am” (ἐγώ εἰμι, 24:39a)—that is to say, the Divine Name. The LORD is now with them. I AM THAT I AM (יְהֹוָה [JHWH], cf. Ex 3:14) was dead and is now alive (cf. Rev 1:18).

“Handle me (ψηλαφήσατέ, cf. Acts 17:27-> I John 1:1) and see that a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see Me have” (24:39b). A Spirit yet a Man with flesh—with a Body. There is no division, no dualism. Now, the perfect integration of the New Creation. Divine and human once again united.

Still they are unable to grasp this; still they are unable to believe (ἀπιστούντων, ἄ + πιστος) yet this time “out of great joy” (ἀπὸ τῆς χαρᾶς), rather than before when their intrusive human preconceptions blinded them to the Eternal Reality (cf. ἀπιστέω in Lk 24:10->11 & Mk 16:9->11). He asks them for food and eats fish and honeycomb “in their presence” (ἐνώπιον αὐτῶν). 

Witnessing these things, this union of Spirit and flesh, Divine with human, God with Man, they are taken up, as it were, into a new dimension where they can finally see, perceive and understand (Is 6:9-10-> Mt 13:14->16) the Realities revealed in the Risen Christ, “in Whom are hidden all the treasures (πάντες οἱ θησαυροὶ) of wisdom and knowledge” (τῆς σοφίας καὶ τῆς γνώσεως ἀπόκρυφοι, Col 2:3). 

“Then He said to them, ‘These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled (δεῖ πληρωθῆναι) which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.’ 

->

“And He opened their nous (διήνοιξεν αὐτῶν τὸν νοῦν).

Why? How? To what effect?

That they might comprehend the Scriptures (τοῦ συνιέναι τὰς γραφάς, Lk 24:45). 

Their mind/heart/soul/spirit now fully integrated (on this side of Heaven) is opened up to the Eternal Dimensions of Reality revealed in the Crucified and Risen Christ. They, like Paul after them, can now rightly understand and interpret anew the things written “concerning Him”.

“Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer (ἔδει παθεῖν) and to rise (ἀναστῆναι) from the dead the third day, and that metanoia and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (24:46-47).

They are finally ready to receive the call, the commission. “And you are witnesses (μάρτυρες, martyrs) of these things” (24:48).

Here, then, is the first use of nous in the New Testament. It takes us through Christ’s first appearances to the disciples where He progressively reveals the recreation of the cosmos through His Death and Resurrection, whereby Heaven and earth are joined together, Spirit and flesh integrated, God and Man united.

As we will not have the time to move into detail regarding the remaining uses in the NT, we will only briefly highlight its next two uses in Romans; the first to show the twofold division of this nous; the second to show its redemption.

Summary Synthesis (Romans)

From the recreation of the cosmos through the Crucified and Risen Christ, we are freed from the slavery to the darkness and passions of This Fallen Age, as our nous is renewed by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel of our LORD.

Detailed Analysis

Just as we saw the nous lifted up into the Eternal Dimensions of Reality in Christ, we next see it lowered to the depths of fallen humanity, cut off from God. When man rejects divine revelation that is “clearly seen” (καθορᾶται) in created reality that serves to manifest His “Eternal Power and Godhead (ἀΐδιος αὐτοῦ δύναμις καὶ θειότης, Rom 1:20); and further, when man refuses to respond to the beauty and wonder of creation by glorifying God (ἐδόξασαν) and giving Him thanks (εὐχαρίστησαν), his nous is broken apart, becoming vain (ἐματαιώθησαν) in its imaginations (διαλογισμοῖς) with his heart disintegrating (ἀσύνετος) into darkness (Rom 1:21).

This word here of ἀσύνετος speaks of total dis-integration. It is the combination of the negative particle, ἄλφα, with συνίημι that means to “synthesize by putting things together into a comprehensive whole.” ασυνετος, then, expresses “that which is broken apart so that it can no longer synthesize or understand.”

This is what happens to the fallen nous.

The end of Romans 1 is the terrifying result. We become “fools” (ἐμωράνθησαν, 1:22); We reject God’s Eternal Glory for fallen creation (1:23); Wherefore, God “gives [us] up” (παραδίδωμι) to the lust of a disintegrated heart (1:24); to the slavery of the passions (1:26); and finally to a “reprobate nous” (ἀδόκιμον νοῦν—a nous that has been tested [δόκιμος] in the fires of reality and, rather than being refined by it, has been totally destroyed). The litany of man’s descent into darkness is detailed in the ensuing verses which end in fallen humanity becoming “foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless” (ESV of ἀσυνέτους ἀσυνθέτους ἀστόργους ἀσπόνδους, ἀνελεήμονας, 1:31)

From these depths, its next usage calls forth total redemption. Yet, as is the Way of the Cross, this pathway to redemption comes through the paradox of sacrifice. Paul, as it were, stands beside us (Παρα-) and begs us (-καλῶ) “by the mercies of God” (διὰ τῶν οἰκτιρμῶν τοῦ θεοῦ) to present our bodies a living sacrifice (θυσίαν ζῶσαν), holy, acceptable unto God”, which is our “reasonable service” to Him (λογικὴν λατρείαν, 12:1, cf. Rom 9:4). 

As this “divine service” is not an external ritual but living reality, he continues with a twofold command. “And be not conformed to this present age (μη συνσχηματίζεσθε—Let not this age be your schema for how to live): but be transformed (αλλα μεταμορφουσθε [metamorphosis]) by the renewing of your nous (ανακαινωσει του νοος) [See Tit 3:5 for the role of the Holy Spirit in such a renewal), that you may prove (δοκιμάζειν) what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect (τέλειον), will of God (Rom 12:2).

And so with this we bring this word study to a close for now. From the recreation of the cosmos through the Crucified and Risen Christ, we are brought out of slavery to the darkness and passions of This Fallen Age, with our nous renewed by the Holy Spirit in the Gospel of our Lord unto New Creational Life in Jesus.