Maybe philosophy should first tackle theology, since that was the lens through which it was first transfigured.
For instance, wouldn’t a spiritual absolute be the essence of sentience, from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which we fell?
More the new born, than the wise old man. The consciousness seeking knowledge and form, than any particular frame or brand of it. The light shining through the film, than the images on it.
It seems this top down father figure lawgiver and his ten commandments is more of a narrative device to pass on civil and cultural systems, particularly respect for authority, to generations of citizens, as well as comfort for their afflictions, than a genuine spiritual statement.
Confusing the ideal with the absolute tends to validate one’s cultural mores as universal, rather than unique and that leads to the culturally self centered opinion that one’s culture is supreme, rather than a node in a larger network.
It should be noted that democratic and republican political systems evolved in poly and pantheistic societies. Then when we went back to them, separation of church and state became necessary.
We are no longer tribes in the wilderness and should rewrite some of this social software.
Good and bad are not some cosmic duel between the forces of righteousness and evil, but the basic biological binary of beneficial and detrimental. So moral and cultural systems are a ceaseless dynamic, not some perfect ideal that everyone will, or must eventually fit.
Reality is this dichotomy of energy radiating out, as form coalesces in. As galaxies are cosmic convection cycles of same, we are the digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems processing the energy driving us on, along with a central nervous system to sort through the forms precipitating out and to referee the desires bubbling up.
Much as society is the basic social desires bubbling up, as civil and cultural forms coalesce in.
When those civil and cultural forms start to settle into patterns, cracks naturally appear in the weaker spots, so the system patches them over, pushing the energy back down, to bubble up in other forms.
So we might want to ditch our idealist monism, in favor of a more cyclical dualism.
Without the ups and downs, it’s a flatline.
