E.R. Dodds on the defining features of Hellenic Rationalism- are they compatible with the Gospel?

[Zipporah's Flint]

E.R. Dodds was an Irish Classicist of the last century most famous for his superb "The Greeks and the Irrational" and "Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety". The below is from his essay "Euripides the Irrationalist". I do think he captures here the essence of the Socratic tradition and much that came out of it. My question to posters here is how compatible do they believe the below is with Christianity.

"The philosophy makes three affirmations:

First that reason is the sole and suffient instrument of truth- as against views which assign that function to sense-perception, or to faith, or something called "intuition", or deny any sufficient instrument exists at all.

From this it follows, secondly, that reality must be such that it can be understood by reason; and this implies that the structure of reality must be in itself in some sense rational.

Lastly, in such a universe values as well as facts will be rational; the highest Good will be either rational thought or something closely akin to it. Hence the tendency of rationalism is to say that moral, like intellectual, error can arise only from a failure to use the reason we posssess; and when it does arise it must, like intellectual error, be curable through an intellectual process.

These are what I shall call the three affirmations of rationalism; reason as the instrument of truth; as the essential character of reality; as the means to personal redemption."

 

[AUL LAD]

E.R. Dodds was an Irish Classicist of the last century most famous for his superb "The Greeks and the Irrational" and "Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety". The below is from his essay "Euripides the Irrationalist". I do think he captures here the essence of the Socratic tradition and much that came out of it. My question to posters here is how compatible do they believe the below is with Christianity.

"The philosophy makes three affirmations:

First that reason is the sole and suffient instrument of truth- as against views which assign that function to sense-perception, or to faith, or something called "intuition", or deny any sufficient instrument exists at all.

From this it follows, secondly, that reality must be such that it can be understood by reason; and this implies that the structure of reality must be in itself in some sense rational.

Lastly, in such a universe values as well as facts will be rational; the highest Good will be either rational thought or something closely akin to it. Hence the tendency of rationalism is to say that moral, like intellectual, error can arise only from a failure to use the reason we posssess; and when it does arise it must, like intellectual error, be curable through an intellectual process.

These are what I shall call the three affirmations of rationalism; reason as the instrument of truth; as the essential character of reality; as the means to personal redemption."

great post
reality is elusive and is an evolving state,
which sounds like a contradiction as a state implies a period stop but reality is merely a series of states which have varying gaps of time between them.
if you take one of the most famous physicists James Clerk Maxwell,
who discovered the relationship between electricity magnetism and light,
and published his Maxwell equations to explain this to the world-
which went in the next few years to base all scientific work on his equations and Einstein stated he stood on maxwells shoulders.
it has been explained as MAXWELL CARRIED OUT THE FIRST PROFOUND UNIFICATION OF NATURE'S FORCES .
as a child he had a saying which he used all his life to explain his purpose in life "" WHA THE GO O DAT"".
there was no rationale confines to his work--it went where the mathematics brought him ,
and the highest good did not exist as the rings of saturn which he explored successfully mathematically did not have a moral position or any morality at all .
the structure of reality does not have to be rational and anyone who confined themselves to RATIONAL research would have to quit the following day as physics has no morality or rationality .
the great nobel prize winning Richard Feynman said ""maybe reality is strange-- really strange --maybe stranger than we can understand "".

 

[Hermit]

E.R. Dodds was an Irish Classicist of the last century most famous for his superb "The Greeks and the Irrational" and "Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety". The below is from his essay "Euripides the Irrationalist". I do think he captures here the essence of the Socratic tradition and much that came out of it. My question to posters here is how compatible do they believe the below is with Christianity.

"The philosophy makes three affirmations:

First that reason is the sole and suffient instrument of truth- as against views which assign that function to sense-perception, or to faith, or something called "intuition", or deny any sufficient instrument exists at all.

From this it follows, secondly, that reality must be such that it can be understood by reason; and this implies that the structure of reality must be in itself in some sense rational.

Lastly, in such a universe values as well as facts will be rational; the highest Good will be either rational thought or something closely akin to it. Hence the tendency of rationalism is to say that moral, like intellectual, error can arise only from a failure to use the reason we posssess; and when it does arise it must, like intellectual error, be curable through an intellectual process.

These are what I shall call the three affirmations of rationalism; reason as the instrument of truth; as the essential character of reality; as the means to personal redemption."

I haven't heard about Dodds or his affirmations before, but I would disagree with them. Reason is a great tool but is limited, and we don't need reason to find certain truths. It depends what truth we are looking for. As for being compatible with Christianity, maybe partially.