The inaugural William J. Abraham Memorial Lecture will take place at 9:30 a.m. Monday, Oct. 17 at Perkins Chapel, with Dr. Frederick Aquino delivering the lecture and a reception following in the Blue Room in Bridwell Library. Bridwell Library (SMU Libraries) and Perkins School of Theology established the annual Memorial Lecture to bring a scholar to the SMU campus each year to engage in a topic of the scholar’s choosing related to Abraham’s work.
Dr. Abraham, 73, died suddenly in October 2021. He was the Albert Cook Outler Professor of Wesley Studies at Perkins from 1995 until his retirement in May 2021. He joined the Perkins faculty on Sept. 1, 1985, as the McCreless Associate Professor of Evangelism and the Philosophy of Religion under the leadership of then-Dean James Kirby and Provost Hans Hillerbrand. After retirement, he became Professor Emeritus of Wesley Studies.
Aquino’s lecture is titled “William J. Abraham and John Henry Newman on Faith and Reason.”
Dr. Aquino is Professor of Theology and Philosophy at the Graduate School of Theology, Abilene Christian University (ACU), and the director of the philosophy minor at ACU. Aquino earned his Ph.D. in Religious Studies (with an emphasis in systematic theology) from Southern Methodist University in 2000.
Perkins Perspective interviewed Dr. Aquino in advance of his Oct. 17 lecture; here are some excerpts.
Let’s start by talking about how you knew Billy Abraham, and what you admired about him.
I first met Billy in 1994 when I started my Ph.D. program in systematic theology at SMU. I took a class with him, and we hit it off really well. That led to having him as my advisor, and ultimately, that became a lifetime connection. We stayed in touch, worked on scholarly projects together, and co-taught a seminar at ACU.
I was immediately struck by how attentive he was to my particular questions, thoughts and areas of dissonance, where things didn’t make sense to me. From the very beginning of our relationship, he was deeply invested in my formation as a scholar, teacher and Christian.
Billy humanized learning. He was patient yet tenacious, opened-minded yet courageous, critical yet constructive. He demanded of his students, as well of himself, the capacity to form arguments, map out questions and pursue greater levels of understanding. One of his greatest qualities was the capacity to take seriously other points of view, including those that radically differed from his own.
John Henry Newman once said of his intellectual mentor, Richard Whately, that he, “emphatically, opened my mind, and taught me to think and to use my reason.” Billy did the exact same for me. He led me to think more critically and more openly. He gave me the space to develop my own thinking while pushing me to extend my thinking in fresh and helpful ways.
How did your association with Billy inform your own work and career?
I have highlighted and extended his work while carving out my own scholarly contributions. Billy and I co-edited The Oxford Handbook of the Epistemology of Theology, which featured leading philosophers and theologians. As a result of this project, I have been invited to lecture and write on various aspects of Billy’s philosophical and theological thought. Yet, my research projects are not limited to Billy’s thought. Some examples include my work on Newman’s epistemology, Maximus the Confessor, the philosophical interpretation of biblical texts, deification, spiritual perception and religious experience.
For those who don’t know, who was John Henry Newman?
Newman (1801-1890) was an English theologian and scholar who spent the first half of his life as an Anglican and the second as a Roman Catholic. He was one of the more notable leaders of the Oxford Movement, a group of Anglicans who sought to recover the Church of England’s apostolic basis and Catholic character. He also wrote on topics like the development of doctrine, the rationality of religious belief, the idea of a university, justification, and conscience. He was canonized as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church in 2019.
I think Billy’s interest in Newman was deeply shaped by his advisor, Basil Mitchell, who was an Oxford professor of philosophy and religion. If you go through Billy’s writings, you can see philosophical traces of Newman’s thought. In this lecture, I hope to show how the ideas of Billy Abraham, a Northern Irish United Methodist, and John Henry Newman, a Victorian Anglican/Roman Catholic, intersect on faith and reason.
Have you ever considered what Billy might say about having you deliver the lecture named after him?
Years ago, someone was planning to have a lecture at SMU about Billy and his scholarship. The organizers asked him, “Who’s the one person that would give us a good lecture on you, but also offer a critical evaluation of your thought?” And Billy said, “Fred Aquino.”
We had such a great relationship. We could level with each other and disagree, but that never jeopardized our friendship. I think if he were somehow magically sitting in the room during the lecture, he might have a big old smirk on his face, an expression of pride. Knowing him, I think he would be excited, proud and curious to hear what I have to say.