More on Authority and Reason

Re the question of whether acceptance of authority makes reason suspect: It seems to me that reason can recognize no limit but truth. Therefore, any fallible principle or conclusion must be able to be questioned by reason. I don’t fully trust the reasoning of those who start with impediments to truth-seeking, whether they be believers or nihilists—which of course does not mean that I don’t take their arguments seriously nor that verifiability or certainty is necessary for a claim to be true.

However, those authoritative principles or conclusions which are infallible are not impediments to truth-seeking. Rather, their denial is such an impediment. Therefore, their acceptance of the essential content of the Catholic faith does not make St. Thomas or others suspect in their reasoning, though I suppose Eduardo is right if he suggests that such acceptance may make some of them intellectually lazy at times. (Already having an answer, they may not search as thoroughly as would someone desperate to find an answer. But this seems an empirical question of human motivation rather than of principle.)

Of course, those who do not accept the essential content of the Faith are right by their own lights to approach our work with reasonable suspicion, just as we should approach theirs.