Substantive authority and formal authority

The rabbi writes in his book “Two Carts and a Balloon” that halakhic authority is intrinsic in origin, and from the intrinsic that later generations felt towards the earlier generations they also established formal authority. The rabbi explains there that the intrinsic nature of the sages stemmed from the fact that the intuition of the sages in the past was stronger than the intuition of the later generations due to the development of analytics, which caused a decline in intuitive ability.

In the trilogy, the rabbi writes that the sages have formal authority regarding the field of halakhah.

I asked the rabbi in one of the classes the past two weeks why science is developing while Torah study has declined, since both use intuition. The rabbi explained that the difference is that in science they started using empiricism and that is what caused all the developments.

My question is – although in matters of science there is no reason to listen to the words of the sages, is it not necessary to listen to the words of the sages in matters of spiritual facts? In these matters there is no empiricism and therefore supposedly we should listen to them because they had a stronger intuition. Perhaps in the matter of providence this is not the case according to the Rabbi’s method because there was a decline in providence with the progress of the generations, but in spiritual facts supposedly we are supposed to listen to the sages because of their essential authority..?