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Oh, thank you so very much for your kind words, dearest sister in Christ! I much admire the way you related the "phenomenal four" to the "cosmic immanent" —

...final cause is essential to understanding biological systems.... For instance, it would be counterproductive to deny the liver has a function....

In my view, the other three causes are addressed by the Newtonian paradigm, e.g. formal cause by physical laws/constants, material cause by matter/energy and efficient cause by momentum/inertia (which entails gravity, i.e. equivalence principle.)

Formal cause — physical laws/constants

Material cause — matter/energy

Efficient cause — momentum/inertia (entailing gravity)

Final cause — the cause which entails the other three causes (i.e., which effects causal closure, so that efficient cause is constrained to within the system); the limit, purpose, or functional goal that seems to act "from the future" (e.g., Alex Williams' inversely-causal metainformation).

If that sounds strange, maybe Aristotle can clear it up for us:

...the final cause is an end, and that sort of end which is not for the sake of something else, but for whose sake everything else is; so that if there is to be a last term of this sort, the process will not be infinite; but if there is no such term, there will be no final cause, but those who maintain the infinite series eliminate the Good without knowing it (yet no one would try to do anything if he were not going to come to a limit); nor would there be reason in the world; the reasonable man, at least, always acts for a purpose, and this is a limit; for the end is a limit. — Aristotle Metaphysics Book II, Part 2
For the final cause is (a) some being for whose good an action is done, and (b) something at which the action aims; and of these the latter exists among unchangeable entities though the former does not. The final cause, then, produces motion as being loved, but all other things move by being moved. — Ibid. Book XII, Part 7

Dearest sister in Christ, you wrote: "I would see space/time as the domain of Immanent Cause and being as the domain of Cosmic Cause." Thank you oh so very much for this marvelous insight! I can see that, too.

To God be the glory!

Thank you oh so very much for these additional insights, dearest sister in Christ, and thank you for your encouragements!

Very well said!

Aristotle: For the final cause is (a) some being for whose good an action is done, and (b) something at which the action aims; and of these the latter exists among unchangeable entities though the former does not. The final cause, then, produces motion as being loved, but all other things move by being moved.

Fascinating insight in that excerpt!

Autonomy is key to "life itself" in Rosen's mathematical model for relational biology. As he says "a material system is an organism if, and only if, it is closed to efficient causation."

Likewise, autonomy is relevant in defining life v non-life/death in nature using Shannon's mathematical model of communications. Which is to say, when a thing in nature is autonomously communicating its message (DNA/RNA) it is alive. When it can no longer communicate, it is dead. If it never could communicate, it is non-life.

Moreover, Scripture confirms biological autonomy (emphasis mine:)

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl [that] may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. - Genesis 1:20

As we briefly discussed on another thread, the link between water and the message being communicated is the hydrogen bond which gives DNA its double helix geometry.

In contrast to biological life which is autonomous ("hath life") - our Spiritual life is non-autonomous.

But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. - Romans 8:9

For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. - Colossians 3:3

The Spiritual message which enlivens us - the words of God - are not altogether physically manifest like DNA. The people Jesus is addressing below were physically hearing Him but they could not spiritually hear Him. They did not have "ears to hear" but we do.

Why do ye not understand my speech? [even] because ye cannot hear my word. – John 8:43

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life. – John 6:63

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: - John 10:27

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned. - I Corinthians 2:14

And that difference comports with Aristotle's insight to the Cosmic level and the Immanent Level.

And another confirmation from Scripture:

Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and [of] the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. - John 3:5-7

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. - Galatians 2:20

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost [which is] in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? - I Corinthians 6:19

God's Name is I AM.