The present work, along with the two other short books published with it in the English edition — Short Discourse on Hell (1987) and Apokatastasis (1988) — contains Balthasar’s argument for the thesis that neither the Scripture nor the Magisterium authorizes any claim to know, in anticipation of the final judgment, the number of the saved. He thus rejects Origen’s doctrine of apokatastasis as well as Augustine’s teaching about the selective predestination of the few. Instead of certain knowledge, we have hope — not just for ourselves, but also for the whole of humanity. But hope, Balthasar shows, is anything but a lazy assurance that “everyone goes to heaven” in the end: It implies an active self-engagement in substitution for sinners in the school of saints like Therese of Lisieux.