---
title: 1 Corinthians 2:11
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/1-corinthians-2-11/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/1-corinthians-2-11.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: 1 Corinthians 2:11
testament: NT
section: Letters
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# 1 Corinthians 2:11

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> For who among men knows the thoughts of man except his own spirit within him? So too, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "For who among men knows the things of a man except the man's spirit within him? So, too, no one has come to know the things of God except the spirit of God."

## JW Usage

The Watchtower teaches that the holy spirit is God's impersonal active force. This verse is read as an analogy about knowledge rather than personhood: just as a man's own thinking is private to him, God's thoughts are known only by his active force, which he uses to reveal them. The comparison to a man's spirit is taken to support the impersonal reading, since a human spirit is not a separate person.

## Protestant Usage

Take the analogy seriously and see where it leads. Paul says the spirit of God knows the things of God the way a man's own spirit knows the things of the man — that is, from the inside, immediately, not by being informed. A force does not know anything. Electricity does not know the things of the generator. Whatever else the analogy establishes, it puts the Spirit of God on the knowing side of the sentence, and it makes that knowledge intrinsic rather than received. Then follow the thread through the same letter and the same author. The Spirit searches the deep things of God (v10), distributes gifts "as he wills" (12:11), can be lied to as a person is lied to (Acts 5:3-4, where lying to the holy spirit is lying to God), and in John's Gospel teaches, testifies, hears and speaks. Forces do not will, search, or get lied to. Pair it with the prayer question: if only the Spirit of God knows God's thoughts, and Jesus receives and answers prayers offered in hearts everywhere at once, what does that make him? Compare 1 Corinthians 2:16, John 16:15, 1 Kings 8:39.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Until Now You Have Not Asked in My Name](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/john-16-23-26-prayer-trap.md) — John 16:23-26 — the unitarian collapse on prayer [Deity of Christ]