The starting-point of this comparative study is the author's hypothesis that in a world of rising tensions between religions a ‘binary’ understanding of salvation, which categorically separates those who are to be saved from those who are not, must be replaced by the notion of universal salvation. Of the various arguments that have been adduced against the latter position, the only one that he considers serious is that universalism would destroy ‘particularity’. It is therefore his intention in the book under review to marshal the support of Origen and Barth for an account of universalism that avoids that danger. In order to engage the two very different thinkers into a real dialogue, Greggs confronts them constantly as he goes along; rather than dividing his book into parts dealing with each of his authors, the structure he adopts follows the logic of his own argument, according to which the Son's atoning work brings universal salvation whereas the work of the Spirit guarantees particularity. The book then falls into two parts, each of which consists of chapters on Barth and Origen as well as one entitled ‘Dialogue’. A seventh chapter offers the author's conclusion together with some hints about the liturgical and ethical consequences of his systematic findings. Many readers will sympathise with the project that Greggs pursues in his study. He is surely right that in an increasingly pluralistic world the relationship between the universal claims made by Christianity and its own historical particularity becomes ever more pressing. Quite apart from this broader interest, the idea of bringing the theologies of Origen and Barth into dialogue is as intriguing as it is challenging not least because of the substantial interpretative difficulties posed by each of them in their own right. Greggs, rightly, refrains from discussing his own question in isolation from related theological topics, but too often gives in to the temptation of simply running through a chain of extremely complex issues in a few pages, which leaves the reader both exhausted and dissatisfied. While there is, then, an occasional sense of ‘too much’ in this book, there is also one of ‘too little’. Specifically, the reader would have benefited from a clearer analysis of some of the central terms that Greggs uses. The plausibility of universalism seems to depend not least on the precise understanding of ‘salvation’ – is the issue merely the outcome of divine judgment or does it involve cognitive and ethical transformations in this life already? Both Origen and Barth have interesting things to say on this, of which more could have been made here. Likewise, ‘particularity’ is used without apparent distinction for the author's emphasis on Christian ‘particularity’ (as against theories of religious pluralism: p. 206) and to the problem of the preservation of the ‘particularity’ (=‘individual diversity’) of creation when eschatologically restored into divine oneness (pp. 83–4). Greggs's study thus is a thoughtful and stimulating engagement with some issues of great importance, but it does not necessarily answer all the questions that it raises.