Kelly James Clark
Biographic Data
| ID | 3965718 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kelly James Clark |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kelly James |
| FAMILY NAME | Clark |
| SIGNATURE | CLARK K J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Calvin University |
| ORCID | 0009-0009-2801-7588 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 12 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1989 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Spiritual Geography of Early Chinese Thought: Gods, Ancestors and Afterlife
The notion of 'gods' and religious beliefs in early China are often considered to be either unique to a single non-representative thinker, and therefore irrelevant in the writings of mainstream Chinese thinkers, or inconsequential to Chinese moral and political thought. Rejecting the claim that religious practice plays a minimal philosophical role, Kelly James Clark and Justin Winslett offer a textual study that maps the religious terrain of earl…
Federal and State Pharmacy Regulations and Dispensing Barriers to Buprenorphine Access at Retail Pharmacies in the US
This Viewpoint describes federal and state pharmacy regulations that may create barriers to buprenorphine access at pharmacies and suggests policy changes to address those barriers
Spiritually Wired: The Science of the Mind and the Rationality of Belief/Unbelief
I canvass a suite of psychologically-based arguments which aim to undermine rational religious belief. I argue that such arguments, from the God helmet to the God gene, overstate the evidence and fail to establish their conclusions. Moreover, the empirically better-supported cognitive science of religion, though in its infancy, is neutral with respect to the rationality of religious belief. I conclude with a discussion of the cognitive impulses t…
Cultural influences on the teleological stance: Evidence from China
Recent research has suggested that humans have a robust tendency to default to teleological (i.e., purpose-based) explanations of natural phenomena. However, because samples have previously been heavily drawn from Western cultures, it is unclear whether this is a universal cognitive bias or whether prior findings are a product of Western philosophical and theological traditions. We evaluated these possibilities by administering a speeded judgment…
The Blackwell Companion to Naturalism
Blackwell Companion to Naturalism
Trusting intuitions
Evidence and religious belief
"A fundamental question in philosophy of religion is whether religious belief must be based on evidence in order to be properly held. In recent years two prominent positions on this issue have been staked out: evidentialism, which claims that proper religious belief requires evidence; and Reformed epistemology, which claims that it does not. Evidence and Religious Belief contains eleven chapters by prominent philosophers which push the discussion…
The Evolutionary Psychology of Chinese Religion: Pre-Qin High Gods as Punishers and Rewarders
Scholarship on religion in Early China (pre-220 BCE) has been predominantly concerned with the issue of ritual and has tended to be more concerned with placing this within the framework of Chinese history than that of religious studies. As such, other topics, such as deities, have either been neglected or subject to untested claims—often that deities do not exist and that Early China represents an atheist society, an argument that makes little se…
Reidian Religious Epistemology and the Cognitive Science of Religion
Some contemporary philosophers defend the claim that it is rational to believe that God exists even if that belief is not based on evidence. Many such defenses are developed from a religious epistemology inspired by the work of Thomas Reid's “common sense” epistemology that posits the existence of numerous cognitive faculties that nonreflectively deliver beliefs. Reid argued that one is justified in believing the automatic deliverances of these f…
A Confucian Defense of Gender Equity
The oppression of Chinese women is typically blamed on Confucianism. We present a version of Confucianism that relies on the metaphysics of the I Ching, one of the "canonical" Confucian texts, and on more characteristic Confucian doctrines. These metaphysical, anthropological, and ethical beliefs would, if fully implemented, replace the early Confucian hierarchy based partly on gender with a hierarchy based on virtue. This would in turn legitimat…
God is great, God is good: Medieval conceptions of divine goodness and the problem of hell
Medieval views of both divine goodness and the doctrine of hell are examined and shown to be incompatible with our best understandings of goodness. The only manner in which God could be good to those in hell – by permitting their continued existence – is not sufficient to outweigh ‘the dreadful pains of eternal fire’. One might claim that God is good to them in the retributive sense; but I argue that retributive punishment is inadequate justifica…
Trinity or Tritheism
In The Christian God (hereafter CG), Richard Swinburne offers a series of arguments which a priori support the necessity of the doctrine of the Trinity. If his arguments are successful, he has dramatically narrowed the field of logically possible religious beliefs to (Christian) trinitarianism. I contend that Swinburne's arguments necessitate the existence of more than one quasi-independent divine being; indeed Swinburne's arguments move us in th…
Reason and the Christian Religion: Essays in Honour of Richard Swinburne
Journal Article Book Reviews Get access Reason and the Christian Religion: Essays in Honour of Richard Swinburne. Edited By Alan Padgett. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. Pp. xiii + 362. Price £40.00.) Kelly James Clark Kelly James Clark Calvin College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 46, Issue 184, July 1996, Pages 407–411, https://doi.org/10.2307/2956459 Published: 01 Ju…
Reasoned Faith: Essays in Philosophical Theology in Honor of Norman Kretzmann
Overview: Dedicated to Norman Kretzmann - a major figure within medieval philosophy and a leader in the redifinition of philosophy of religion - this book presents important new essays by fourteen eminent philosophers. Examining aspects of the rationality of faith or bringing philosophical techniques to bear on particular religious texts or doctrines, each chapter deepens our understanding of the connections between faith and reason. In the first…
Proofs of God's Existence
Reidian Religious Epistemology and the Cognitive Science of Religion
Some contemporary philosophers defend the claim that it is rational to believe that God exists even if that belief is not based on evidence. Many such defenses are developed from a religious epistemology inspired by the work of Thomas Reid's “common sense” epistemology that posits the existence of numerous cognitive faculties that nonreflectively deliver beliefs. Reid argued that one is justified in believing the automatic deliverances of these f…
The Evolutionary Psychology of Chinese Religion: Pre-Qin High Gods as Punishers and Rewarders
Scholarship on religion in Early China (pre-220 BCE) has been predominantly concerned with the issue of ritual and has tended to be more concerned with placing this within the framework of Chinese history than that of religious studies. As such, other topics, such as deities, have either been neglected or subject to untested claims—often that deities do not exist and that Early China represents an atheist society, an argument that makes little se…
Proofs of God's Existence
Reasoned Faith: Essays in Philosophical Theology in Honor of Norman Kretzmann
Overview: Dedicated to Norman Kretzmann - a major figure within medieval philosophy and a leader in the redifinition of philosophy of religion - this book presents important new essays by fourteen eminent philosophers. Examining aspects of the rationality of faith or bringing philosophical techniques to bear on particular religious texts or doctrines, each chapter deepens our understanding of the connections between faith and reason. In the first…
Trinity or Tritheism
In The Christian God (hereafter CG), Richard Swinburne offers a series of arguments which a priori support the necessity of the doctrine of the Trinity. If his arguments are successful, he has dramatically narrowed the field of logically possible religious beliefs to (Christian) trinitarianism. I contend that Swinburne's arguments necessitate the existence of more than one quasi-independent divine being; indeed Swinburne's arguments move us in th…
Reason and the Christian Religion: Essays in Honour of Richard Swinburne
Journal Article Book Reviews Get access Reason and the Christian Religion: Essays in Honour of Richard Swinburne. Edited By Alan Padgett. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. Pp. xiii + 362. Price £40.00.) Kelly James Clark Kelly James Clark Calvin College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 46, Issue 184, July 1996, Pages 407–411, https://doi.org/10.2307/2956459 Published: 01 Ju…
God is great, God is good: Medieval conceptions of divine goodness and the problem of hell
Medieval views of both divine goodness and the doctrine of hell are examined and shown to be incompatible with our best understandings of goodness. The only manner in which God could be good to those in hell – by permitting their continued existence – is not sufficient to outweigh ‘the dreadful pains of eternal fire’. One might claim that God is good to them in the retributive sense; but I argue that retributive punishment is inadequate justifica…
A Confucian Defense of Gender Equity
The oppression of Chinese women is typically blamed on Confucianism. We present a version of Confucianism that relies on the metaphysics of the I Ching, one of the "canonical" Confucian texts, and on more characteristic Confucian doctrines. These metaphysical, anthropological, and ethical beliefs would, if fully implemented, replace the early Confucian hierarchy based partly on gender with a hierarchy based on virtue. This would in turn legitimat…
Evidence and religious belief
"A fundamental question in philosophy of religion is whether religious belief must be based on evidence in order to be properly held. In recent years two prominent positions on this issue have been staked out: evidentialism, which claims that proper religious belief requires evidence; and Reformed epistemology, which claims that it does not. Evidence and Religious Belief contains eleven chapters by prominent philosophers which push the discussion…
The Evolutionary Psychology of Chinese Religion: Pre-Qin High Gods as Punishers and Rewarders
Scholarship on religion in Early China (pre-220 BCE) has been predominantly concerned with the issue of ritual and has tended to be more concerned with placing this within the framework of Chinese history than that of religious studies. As such, other topics, such as deities, have either been neglected or subject to untested claims—often that deities do not exist and that Early China represents an atheist society, an argument that makes little se…
Reidian Religious Epistemology and the Cognitive Science of Religion
Some contemporary philosophers defend the claim that it is rational to believe that God exists even if that belief is not based on evidence. Many such defenses are developed from a religious epistemology inspired by the work of Thomas Reid's “common sense” epistemology that posits the existence of numerous cognitive faculties that nonreflectively deliver beliefs. Reid argued that one is justified in believing the automatic deliverances of these f…
The Blackwell Companion to Naturalism
Blackwell Companion to Naturalism
Trusting intuitions
Cultural influences on the teleological stance: Evidence from China
Recent research has suggested that humans have a robust tendency to default to teleological (i.e., purpose-based) explanations of natural phenomena. However, because samples have previously been heavily drawn from Western cultures, it is unclear whether this is a universal cognitive bias or whether prior findings are a product of Western philosophical and theological traditions. We evaluated these possibilities by administering a speeded judgment…
Spiritually Wired: The Science of the Mind and the Rationality of Belief/Unbelief
I canvass a suite of psychologically-based arguments which aim to undermine rational religious belief. I argue that such arguments, from the God helmet to the God gene, overstate the evidence and fail to establish their conclusions. Moreover, the empirically better-supported cognitive science of religion, though in its infancy, is neutral with respect to the rationality of religious belief. I conclude with a discussion of the cognitive impulses t…
Federal and State Pharmacy Regulations and Dispensing Barriers to Buprenorphine Access at Retail Pharmacies in the US
This Viewpoint describes federal and state pharmacy regulations that may create barriers to buprenorphine access at pharmacies and suggests policy changes to address those barriers
Spiritual Geography of Early Chinese Thought: Gods, Ancestors and Afterlife
The notion of 'gods' and religious beliefs in early China are often considered to be either unique to a single non-representative thinker, and therefore irrelevant in the writings of mainstream Chinese thinkers, or inconsequential to Chinese moral and political thought. Rejecting the claim that religious practice plays a minimal philosophical role, Kelly James Clark and Justin Winslett offer a textual study that maps the religious terrain of earl…
Philosophy (14 works) · Epistemology (13 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Law (5 works) · Theology (5 works) · Theology and Philosophy of Evil (5 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Political science (4 works) · Sociology (4 works) · China (3 works)