The large number of letters which the apologist Bergier exchanged over the space of more than a year with abbé Trouillet, a traditional theologian, show Bergier's originality. According to him redemption, which extended to the whole of the human race, was complete and overflowing in its effects. He referred to the Greek Church fathers and considered that original sin was a late and blameworthy Augustinian invention. He tended to believe in a small number of damned, comprising only those who voluntarily refused grace. In order to achieve a general redemption, he refused to limit it to those to whom grace was proposed by baptism alone. According to him, the baptised are saved by justice, according to which God keeps the promises made to his Church, while the others are saved by his mercy. It is in this context that Bergier used accounting formulae and proposed a sort of celestial demography.

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