The problem with monotheism, the "all-knowing absolute," is that ideals are not absolutes.

Truth, beauty, platonic forms are ideals. The core codes, creeds, heroes, narratives at the center of every culture are ideals.

The universal, on the other hand, is the elemental.

So a spiritual absolute would be the essence of sentience, from which life rises, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which it fell.

The light shining through the film, than the stories playing out on it.

Morality is not absolute, as it couldn't be transgressed, if it were. Like a temperature below absolute zero.

Morals are the ideals that enable a healthy and functional society. Traditionally that one's status be a function of what one adds, not what one can extract. Which is why our current culture is increasingly necrotic. Responsibilities precede rights, not the other way around.

Democracy and republicanism originated in pantheistic cultures. The many ideas, ideals, factors, metaphors, factions interacting.

Ancient Israel was a monarchy. The Big Guy Rules. Like the religion. One people, one rule, one god.

The origins of the Trinity go to fertility rites. The young god born in the spring, to the old sky god and earth mother.

Though by the Olympians, Zeus didn't give way to Dionysus. Tradition prevailed over renewal.

Which was why the story of Jesus, crucified and risen, had such fertile ground to take root.

Though by the time Constantine adopted it as the state religion of Rome, he was bringing the sides of the Empire together, so the monotheism was emphasized, while the Trinity was obscured by the Holy Ghost.

So the Catholic Church was the eschatological basis for European monarchy. Divine right of kings, as opposed to consent of the governed.

When the West went back to democracy and republicanism, it required separation of church and state, culture and civics, morals and law.

The West is falling apart, because the foundations are cracked.