What is the reality of necessary and eternal truth? Metaphysical dispute of Jesuit theologians in the middle of the 17th century

The article is a study of the metaphysical dispute about the reality of necessary and eternal truths that took place among the leading Spanish Jesuits during the heyday of the scholastic tradition of the Society of Jesus in the middle of the 17th century. The traditional scholastic problem of “eternal truths” concerning essences of creatures and their possible existence, was radically reformulated thanks to the theological “innovations” of A. Pérez, who argued that the only verificativum (or foundation of reality) of any necessary truths is the very essence of God. This caused a furious polemical reaction on the part of S. Izquierdo, who proposed his own solution to this problem within the framework of his own original ontology of “status rerum” (especially the quidditative status) from the position of superrealism. The followers of Pérez, in turn, persistently opposed the "extremes" of Izquierdo's position. First, we briefly explicate the concept of "necessary and eternal truth" in Peripatetic tradition and give a historical overview of the time and place of this dispute, pointing to the main works in which the metaphysicians and theologians of the Society who participated in it formulated their positions. Secondly, we explicate the Pérezian thesis about God as the foundation of the necessity and reality of eternal truths on the example of an early treatise on the "possibility of creatures" by Gaspar de Ribadeneira (1653). Thirdly, we detail and analyze Izquierdo's criticism of this position in Disputation 10 of his Pharus scientiarum (1659). Fourthly, we present Izquierdo's own doctrine of the “quidditative status of things” or absolute necessary objective truths, and also explain his understanding of the necessity and eternity of such truths. In addition, we analyze how exactly he solves the key problem for his ontology - the problem of distinction and separability of the quidditative and existential status of a thing. Finally, we analyze the criticism of Izquierdo's position in the metaphysics of Antonio Bernaldo de Quirós (1666), pointing out the specifics of his argumentation and its theological and philosophical motives.