What Is This Place?

This is my website. It’s a place to be me, to share what I’m thinking about, and for you to enjoy a little of the magic that the internet used to have.

I’m Metathomist. I write about Catholic theology, philosophy, and what artificial intelligence is doing to the way we think about being human. Those three things are not separate for me. They keep running into each other.

Why “Sed Contra”?

If you’ve ever opened the Summa Theologiae, you know how St. Thomas Aquinas builds an argument. He asks a question. He lists the objections, and he lists them fairly, sometimes better than their authors would. Then he writes two Latin words: sed contra.

On the contrary.

It’s the turn. It’s where a short, solid authority stands up against everything that was just said. After that comes respondeo, “I answer that,” and the real work begins.

I like that order. It’s honest about the other side and it doesn’t panic. That’s how I want to write, and it’s why the tagline is old arguments for new minds. The arguments are old, and they’ve held up. The minds meeting them now are new, and they’re asking the questions in new ways.

Why a little study?

Because the internet should be fun again, and because Thomas is my guide here.

So the front page is a candle-lit study. There’s a tiny Aquinas in it. He paces, he writes at his desk, and sometimes he kneels to pray. There are a few things you can click on:

• The computer is an old amber terminal that holds my apologetics. Pick a topic, work down to the arguments. It takes a moment to connect. I’ll let you find out how it sounds.
• The bookshelf opens the works of Aquinas himself, because I’d rather send you to the source than to me.
• The lamp swaps light and dark.
• The bird at the window shows what I’ve been saying on 𝕏.
• The incense, the banner, and a few other things have their own small surprises.

There may also be a secret or two. I’m not going to say where.

The enter study link takes you to the big version of the room. The writing itself lives under writings, and my longer essays also go out on Substack.

What you’ll find here

• Apologetics. Clear arguments, set out so you can follow them and use them. I start with Sola Scriptura, then keep going.
• Philosophy. Mostly the Aristotelian and Thomistic tradition, because I think it still explains the world better than the alternatives.
• AI. What these systems are, what they aren’t, and why the old questions about mind and soul matter more than ever.
• Stories about Aquinas. The firebrand and the window are the first two. I want to tell more of them.

I’m not trying to win a shouting match. I want to think carefully in public, give the other side its due, and then say what I actually believe and why.

If something here helps you, great. If you disagree, even better. Sed contra is an invitation as much as a method.

Pull up a chair.

ad majorem Dei gloriam