The debate continues over on Dena’s post, “Further Ado on Joseph’s Joke”. Here’s my latest contribution to the fray:

Tom,
Doesn’t the fact that Augustine and Aquinas have been canonised by the Church indicate that what they believed and taught has more authority objectively than the philosophy of, say, Descartes, Kant or Hegel? Doesn’t the fact that the Church has named Augustine and Aquinas as Doctors of the Church indicate that they teach with authority? Doesn’t the fact that they are taught with authority in every Catholic seminary in the world indicate that they speak with authority? Doesn’t the fact that the Church has for hundreds of years privileged Aquinas as the preeminent of all philosophers, dubbing him the Angelic Doctor, indicate that the Church believes that Aquinas teaches with authority? Countless doctoral dissertations have been written on the authoritative nature of Augustine and Aquinas. As a scientist, you will be very capable of finding ample evidence that these two saints teach with an authority accepted by the Church that supersedes the teaching of other philosophers. Certainly the Church would not dismiss Augustinian and Thomistic philosophy as mere “opinion” to be placed in a relativistic sense on an equal par with all other philosophies, any more than she places Augustinian and Thomistic theoloogy on an equal par with the theology of Luther or Calvin.