James I. Packer was born in 1926 in Gloucestershire, United Kingdom. He holds a doctorate in theology, which he obtained in 1954 from the University of Oxford. Initially, he served as an assistant pastor in the Anglican Church, but soon shifted his focus towards educational institutions. He taught at Tyndale Hall, an Anglican seminary in Bristol, until 1961, after which he assumed the position of dean at Latimer House, an evangelical study center affiliated with the Anglican Church in Oxford, until 1970. In that year, he returned to Bristol to become the dean of Trinity College, a fusion of Tyndale Hall with two other theological educational institutions.

In 1979, James I. Packer left the United Kingdom to settle in Vancouver, Canada, where he became a professor of systematic theology and historical theology at Regent College.

James Innell Packer is widely regarded as one of the most influential evangelicals in North America. He is also the author of numerous books, some of which have been translated into French. Among them, one of his bestselling works, “Knowing God,” published by Grâce et Vérité editions, has been translated into many languages and sold hundreds of thousands of copies.