Death of James Leo Garrett

Interesting. Was his book "Calvin and the Reformed Tradition" for or against the "Reformed Tradition"?

 

James Leo Garrett Jr.

 

The persons on that board don't know a thing about Garrett. He was one of my professors at SWBTS.

I do not know of his specific views on Reformed theology, but I know he was not a five-point Calvinist. He was also not "liberal," by any sane or scholarly definition.

 

Would agree with their assessment that he was an ardent Arminian in theology then?

 

ar·dent
/ˈärdnt/
adjective

1. enthusiastic or passionate.

Dr. Garrett was and is enthusiastic and passionate about Jesus and theology. (I write “is” because God is the God of the living, not the dead.)

I am somewhat confident he was not Reformed based on some discussions I had with him in my “Theology of American Cults” class back in early 1990. I had a lengthy dialogue with him regarding “Seed Faith” theology as related to the “New Thought” movement that birthed Christian Science, Unity, and a number of other cults.

A few weeks after that discussion, I purchased the book, “The Agony of Deceit,” which had just come out, and Michael Horton was analyzing TV preaching from a Reformed perspective. Garrett considered it a slight weakness of the book, limiting its audience, since all biblical Christians can agree that many TV preachers are often rank heretics if we analyze their teaching by simply a broad ecumenical Christian standard.

I know that Garrett affirmed perseverance of the saints, so he was not Arminian. But I also don’t think he was Reformed.

As a systematic theology professor, Garrett refrained from explicitly presenting his own views in order not to unduly influence his students, and sought to treat multiple viewpoints fairly. At the same time, I had the sense that his viewpoints were highly nuanced and would not easily fit in typical categories.

Garrett apparently wrote a series of articles on Calvinism that appeared in the Alabama Baptist that critiqued Calvinism. Tom Ascol wrote what appears to be a fair and helpful critique of Garrett’s articles that you can find here:

Leo Garrett | Category | Tom Ascol Blog |

Ascol helpfully provides hyperlinks to the original Garrett articles which I recommend you read before Ascol’s comments to provide the proper context.

 

thanks, and I was not being criticsal of Him for not being reformed, just was saying that he was neither Calvinist nor reformed in his theology!