This study examines Thomas Aquinas's teaching about merit. Its primary goal is to determine what Thomas means by merit and to delineate the precise function performed by merit in his account of salvation. Concomitantly, it charts the development in Aquinas's understanding of merit evident in the course of his theological career. Underlying the study is the concern to evaluate Thomas's success in combining his assertion (in his teaching on merit) of the religious value of human action done in obedience to God's will with his unequivocal affirmation (at least by the time of the Summa Theologiae) that human salvation at every stage (predestination, initial justification, perseverance on the path to God, beatitude) is dependent on the free and gracious decision of God to intervene effectively in the life of the individual.

The dissertation is divided into four chapters. The introductory chapter reviews the scholarship on the question of merit in Aquinas and identifies the problems that confront the interpreter of this aspect of Thomas's thought. Chapters two and three establish what Thomas means by merit and delineate the function performed by merit in his theology through the examination in turn of its treatment in the various works of the Thomistic corpus, considered in rough chronological order. Chapter two discusses Thomas's teaching about merit in the Scriptum Super Libros Sententiarum and the De Veritate; and chapter three, his analysis in the Summa Theologiae. In these chapters, the focus is naturally on the systematic and sustained discussions of merit. But attention is also paid to his other, isolated comments about merit, as well as to his treatment of related terms and topics, in order to achieve a balanced and comprehensive account. The final chapter approaches the subject from a different perspective, by placing Aquinas's teaching on merit in its historical context: chapter four concludes the study with an examination of Thomas's use of his principal sources, scripture and Augustine, in the course of his thinking on merit. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.)