The dichotomy between truth and goodness "is why it is so difficult in our culture to understand the argument" surrounding contraception and conscience, the scholar said.
When truth and goodness are linked together, he explained, then it is possible to have an intrinsic link ordering the conjugal act towards the resultant good of openness to life.
"That is impossible for our contemporaries to understand, because for that ordering to take place, what you have to focus on is the goodness of the act. Because of that goodness, the act, through a nature in itself, has an orientation to it."
He explained that when facts and values are separated, then people cannot see why contraception is an objective evil.
"But if goodness is a mere value imposed, then this idea is insensible – you can't make sense of it. You see it as a religious argument, because any value is going to be a subjective projection into the facts."
Waldstein also explained how the idea of gender, as opposed to sex, represents a worldview in which "our body is a neutral machine with no meaning in itself, but all meaning is projected by us into it."
"It follows then that men and women aren't, in virtue of their bodies, men and women. As far as gender is concerned, that is not the realm of fact but of value."
"This," he said, "is a consequence of the choice of mechanics as the master science – the separation between fact and value."
Waldstein said that recapturing natural philosophy "plays a central role" in the new evangelization and overcoming the separation of truth and goodness. Natural philosophy's view allows an objective understanding of nature while also keeping goodness and values within the sphere of the objective.
The scholar told CNA that the encounter between persons is a way to help people think again about nature.
"Expression is such an amazing thing. I look at you, and I see you look, and it's fabulous, it's stupendous." He said that rather than being a "complicated process" of thought and analysis, the encounter of persons can be summed up in this experience: "I see you look."
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"In the Gospel of John, in the prologue, when it talks about the Word becoming flesh, it's interesting that the very first effect of that... is that 'we have seen his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth,'" he said. "That's beauty; glory and beauty are very closely related to each other."
Waldstein concluded that "to have a glimpse of that beauty which appears in Christ – glory, the glory of love, giving himself unreservedly, that, according to John, is the real motive of faith."
Carl Bunderson is the former managing editor of Catholic News Agency.