Protestant Doctrine Would Make All Justified Men “Saviors”

Source: vaticancatholic.com

After explaining that someone cannot truly be called just by a merely external (rather than an inhering form), St. Robert Bellarmine comments on another reason why the Protestant doctrine of justification, according to which justification consists in the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, is false.

St. Robert Bellarmine, De Justificatione, Book 2, Chap. 7: “For if Christ’s righteousness were truly imputed to us in such a way that we were held and reckoned righteous through it, just as if it were properly our own intrinsic and formal righteousness, then undoubtedly we ought to be held and reckoned no less righteous than Christ himself: consequently, we ought to be called and held redeemers and saviors of the world, and to receive other titles and attributes of that kind – which is most absurd.”