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self-government” begins in the good order of the individual citizen: Personal morality is the foundation of the system. If the people are “disordered,” then so will be the society.
This is the heart of the matter. Read Daniel 9:8. A people who live in disobedience are a confused people.
And as de Tocqueville reminds us “Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.”

Spirited: Actually, the heart of the matter resides within the First Principle, “In the beginning God...” From there it works forward to and answers the question, “What is man?”
Though physically an animal, man is unique, for spiritually he is made in the image of his Creator. Spiritually, every man is an individual, with an individual mind (the citadel of the soul), moral conscience, reason, and volition (free will). Hence man has been endowed with the spiritual abilities so vitally necessary for self-governance. Viewed in this light, our founding documents, particularly the Declaration and Constitution, are great spiritual documents. In short, the spiritual is supreme.

From Spinoza to Hegel, and on through Feuerbach, Comte, Marx, and Nietzsche-—all of these thinkers contributed to
the 20th century’s totalitarianin irreligions.

At the heart of these irreligions, is monism (oneness). Monism has the effect of destroying the individual and God, as it subsumes both man and God into nature (or matter, or the cosmos).

Spinoza, Hegel, and Nietzsche, for instance, were pantheistic monists. Marx was a materialist monist. In any case, the two types are simply the two sides of one coin, and are entirely compatible.

Paul summed up Christian theism and monism when he said, “Man will either worship and serve creation (monism) or he will worship and serve the Creator of creation (Christian theism)

As can be seen by this brief summation, monism is the antithesis of Christian theism.