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> No, it just claims that human souls are created differently than animal souls

That's... not much different than what I said (which was that humans are extra special)? I think it was in the early 1900s that the church Magisterium finally said that human souls belonged to different "orders" than plant and animal souls. And hey, wouldn't you know it, but the "orders" spelled out by the Magisterium broke exactly along the lines Aquinas laid out in the Summa. That's why I singled him out.

Re evolution:

The church excommunicated at least one scientist for early work on evolution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorio_Chil_y_Naranjo

> I think it was in the early 1900s that the church Magisterium finally said that human souls belonged to different "orders" than plant and animal souls

Or you could go back to Genesis 2:7 and countless other Biblical passages. This isn't about the Church, it's just a core tenet of Christianity.

> The church excommunicated at least one scientist for early work on evolution

Because he followed Lamarck and Darwin, a vague deist and an agnostic. For a prominent scholar who claimed to be Catholic, excommunication was probably the correct course of action to avoid the scandal of confusing Catholics. This had nothing to do with theistic evolution, which neither of them believed in

But theistic evolution just says that maybe God used natural processes to create the physical bodies of the original humans, apart from their souls which are created individually and instantly for each person.

This was conceded even by St. Augustine as a possibility.

I'm not an expert in this, but I think there's an encyclical to the effect that Thomism is the philosophical basis of Christianity. I also think that his books were recognized by earlier encyclicals, but I don't know if there has been a consistent system of "official" encyclicals throughout the centuries.

There's a papal document from about 2 years ago saying exactly the opposite, effectively that Thomism has been useful within Christendom to explain Catholic doctrines for hundreds of years, but now that Christendom is dead, new ways of explaining the same timeless, aphilosophical theologies must be invented, and Thomism essentially left in the past. I was particularly happy when it came out, especially with how it came from Rome, because I came to the same conclusion about 6 months prior.

Fascinating. I certainly haven't kept up.

Scholastic philosophy, to which Thomas Aquinas (13th Century) made an outsize contribution, dates to the beginning of the 2nd Millennium. But Christian theologians and philosophers had been writing for centuries before that.

Scholasticism is also exclusively Western, but philosophy was and is as important in the Christian East as the West.

In the big picture, Augustine of Hippo (4th/5th Century) is probably as important as Aquinas with respect to overall development of Western Catholic thought.

In Eastern Catholic/Orthodox thought there are luminaries such as Gregory of Nazianzus (4th Century) and John of Damascus (7th/8th Century).

What you may be thinking of is Pope Leo XIII’s ultra high praise of Aquinas in Aeterni Patris, published in 1879.

https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/docum...

> No, it just claims that human souls are created differently than animal souls, and therefore have different properties.

These properties were never proven but simply asserted. Anything asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Also why draw the line between human and animal souls, what about bacteria and viruses?

> It defends this with the same kind of zeal that you defend a round earth with, and for the same reasons.

That is disingenuous, we have an overwhelming amount of evidence that the Earth is round whereas the concept of souls and their supposed differences have been asserted for centuries but never proven.

That's my problem with the concept of religion. When the tough questions are asked, the only answers given are of the special pleading kind and/or simply asserting that something is correct in a tautological way.

No proof necessary, how convenient!

> These properties were never proven but simply asserted.

I wasn't talking about whether they were proven, only where the assertions came from.

> Anything asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

No one here claimed they never tried to provide evidence, we just didn't refer to such attempts since it wasn't relevant to the conversation you joined.

> Also why draw the line between human and animal souls, what about bacteria and viruses?

In context of Catholic theology, those would probably fall under "animal" souls. Just because we didn't use those words doesn't mean they aren't considered.

> That is disingenuous, we have an overwhelming amount of evidence that the Earth is round whereas the concept of souls and their supposed differences have been asserted for centuries but never proven.

They have not been proven to your satisfaction, but in context of Catholic theology, evidence is provided for these, and many find it satisfactory.

> That's my problem with the concept of religion. When the tough questions are asked, the only answers given are of the special pleading kind and/or simply asserting that something is correct in a tautological way.

Maybe you're reading the wrong authors. I wonder what you think of Trent Horn. He seems like a fairly sound apologist.

> No proof necessary, how convenient!

It sounds like you've only read fluffy Protestant books from the last 30 years. No Catohlic theologian I've ever read attempts to make claims without providing evidence, even if that evidence doesn't convince you personally.