Synthesizing the Traditions: Diego Ruiz de Montoya (1562-1632) on whether the Holy Spirit would be distinct from the Son, if He proceeded only from the Father
Abstract
The Jesuit Diego Ruiz de Montoya (1562-1632) is the author of perhaps the most detailed and comprehensive scholastic treatise on the Trinity, which probably also means the most detailed and comprehensive treatise on the Trinity ever written. In my paper I will focus on his treatment of one of the hot issues dividing the Dominican and Franciscan traditions of Trinitarian thought, namely the question whether the Holy Spirit’s double origin, according to the Western filioque formula, is a necessary condition of his being a person distinct from the Son, as the Dominican tradition maintains, or whether His distinction form the Son originates elsewhere (namely in the distinct natures of intellectual and volitional processions), as the Franciscans proclaim, and so does not hinge on the relative opposition with regard to the Son according to the relation of origin.
Montoya provides a subtle and balanced analysis of the problem, exposes the trickiness of per impossibile contrafactual reasoning (as everyone concedes that it is impossible that the Holy Spirit would proceed otherwise than He in fact proceeds) and shows how each of the parties is partly right and partly wrong.