Essays

Read in any order. Each one is self-contained and each one shows its work.

  • Peacemaker vs Peacekeeper: The Difference Is What You’re Willing to Disturb

    A peacekeeper stops the argument. A peacemaker resolves it. Augustine’s definition of peace shows why the first isn’t a milder version of the second — it’s a counterfeit.

  • Biblical Boundaries: Scripture Doesn’t Talk About Limits — It Talks About Debts

    The word boundaries isn’t in the Bible. What’s there instead is stronger — a doctrine of what is owed, to whom, and in what amount. Five questions that settle it.

  • Love Is Not a Floor

    Ordinary people commit terrible acts using ordinary motives. Aquinas explains why — and why love makes a person more dangerous, not less, when their judgment is wrong.

  • You Cannot Argue With a True Sentence

    Reasoning with someone in a spiral fails because every sentence they are saying is true. What works instead is restoring the qualifiers that went missing — and knowing when questions stop working entirely.

  • What the Wicked Count On

    You cannot detect what someone is capable of. You can detect how they describe what they are doing — and the redescription always comes first, out loud, before the act.