Dr. John Kok studied as an undergraduate at Trinity Christian College

Trinity Christian College

Trinity Christian College is a liberal arts college located in Palos Heights, Illinois, a southwest suburb of Chicago. The college was founded in 1959 by a group of Chicago businessmen who wanted to establish a college providing students with a Christian higher education in a Reformed tradition...

 near Chicago, Illinois, USA, under Drs. Maartin Vrieze and Calvin Seerveld. In 1971 he went to the Free University

Vrije Universiteit

The Vrije Universiteit is a university in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Dutch name is often abbreviated as VU and in English the university uses the name "VU University". The university is located on a compact urban campus in the southern part of Amsterdam in the Buitenveldert district...

 in Amsterdam for graduate studies under professors of philosophy Henk Van Riessen

Hendrik Van Riessen

Hendrik Van Riessen was one of the second generation of reformational philosophers arising from the Free University in Amsterdam, after the first generation of Herman Dooyeweerd and D. H. Th. Vollenhoven. Other second generationers were: K. J. Popma, S. U. Zuidema and J. P. A...

 and Jacob Klapwijk

Jacob Klapwijk

Jacob Klapwijk studied under D. H. Th. Vollenhoven in philosophy at the VU University in Amsterdam. Klapwijk's dissertation was written on Ernst Troeltsch , the German theologian and philosopher of "radical historicality" who gave us the sociological distinction between Church, Sect and Mysticism...

, the successor to Dr. D. H. Th. Vollenhoven

D. H. Th. Vollenhoven

Dirk Hendrik Theodoor Vollenhoven was with Herman Dooyeweerd the first generation of reformational philosophers, an intellectual movement with which Vollenhoven worked communally from his election in 1936 as President of the newly-organized group formed to advance the movement; the organization is...

, co-founder of Reformational philosophy

Reformational philosophy

Reformational philosophy is a Neo-Calvinistic movement pioneered by Herman Dooyeweerd and D. H. Th. Vollenhoven that seeks to develop philosophical thought in a radically Protestant Christian direction.- Historical overview :...

. During those years Kok was reacquainted with Vollenhoven's Consequent Problem-Historical Method for the analysis of the history of philosophy in the Western intellectual tradition. Kok began to teach philosophy at Dordt College

Dordt College

Dordt College is a private, Christian, liberal arts college located in Sioux Center, Iowa. It was founded in 1955 and is affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church. The college name is a reference to the Synod of Dort....

, Sioux Center, Iowa, USA, in 1983. In 1992 he completed his dissertation on Vollenhoven's Early Development, which focused on Vollenhoven's approach to the philosophical foundations of mathematics in 1918. Today, he still teaches a few courses at Dordt College

Dordt College

Dordt College is a private, Christian, liberal arts college located in Sioux Center, Iowa. It was founded in 1955 and is affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church. The college name is a reference to the Synod of Dort....

, but now serves as Dean for Research and Scholarship, Director of the Andreas Center for Reformed Scholarship and Service, and Managing Editor of Dordt College Press. For thirteen years (until the fall of 2006), he was the host of the daily radio show, "Talking Our Walk" (KDCR 88.5 FM).

Major ideas and developments in thought

John Kok's dissertation appeared in 1992, entitled Vollenhoven: His Early Development. One of the areas of concentration in this phase of the author's study of the founder's emergence was that of V's pursuit of mathematics as a foundational discipline pointing to the most basic mode of creaturely existence. In Kok's major work to date, Patterns of the Western Mind (1998), which began as a text for his Philosophy 201 students at Dordt College, he lays the foundation for his own original contribution in the use of Vollenhoven's thetical-critical method as well as his Consequent Problem-Historical Method. Dr. Kok continues his project of translating a number of Vollenhoven's essays, articles, and excerpts that will compose the soon-to-be-available volume, A Vollenhoven Reader (Dordt College Press, 2011 forthcoming). In the meantime, he has edited a number of volumes and has produced thematic papers on numerous topics, including shifts in ecological thought. Kok is most recently busy editing a five-volume publication of essays and lectures by his mentor Dr. Calvin G. Seerveld.

Original studies

• Kok, John H. Vollenhoven: His Early Development (Sioux Center, Iowa, USA: Dordt College Press, 1992) [out of print]
• Kok, John H. Patterns of the Western Mind (Sioux Center, Iowa, USA: Dordt College Press, 1998). ISBN 0932914411

Collection

• Kok, John H. (ed) A Vollenhoven Reader (Sioux Center, Iowa, USA: Dordt College Press, 2011 forthcoming).
• Kok, John H. (ed) Celebrating the Vision: The Reformed Perspective of Dordt College (Sioux Center, Iowa, USA: Dordt College Press, 2004). ISBN 093291456X

Translation

• Vollenhoven, Dirk H.T.. Isagoge Philosophiae: Introduction to Philosophy. Translated by John H. Kok; preface by Calvin Seerveld; Foreword by Anthony Tol (Sioux Center, Iowa, USA: Dordt College Press, 2005). A Dutch/English hardcover publication. ISBN 9780932914637.
• Vollenhoven, Dirk H.T.. Introduction to Philosophy. Translated by John H. Kok; preface by Calvin Seerveld; Foreword by Anthony Tol (Sioux Center, Iowa, USA: Dordt College Press, 2005). An English only paperback publication. ISBN 9780932914651.

Articles

• Kok, John H. 1988. "Vollenhoven and 'scriptural philosophy,'" Philosophia Reformata 53(2): 101-142.
• Kok, John H. "Learning to Teach from within a Christian Perspective," in Celebrating the Vision: The Reformed Perspective of Dordt College (Sioux Center, Iowa, USA: Dordt College Press, 2004). ISBN 093291456X
• Kok, John H. "Woltjer on Classical Antiquity," in In the Phrygian Mode: Neo-Calvinism, Antiquity and the Lamentations of Philosophy (Lanham, Maryland: UPA, 2007). ISBN 978-0-7618-3021-4