Now you are getting into an often misunderstood semantic distinction concerning “cause” and “description”.
For anything to physically exist, it must have physical affect. And anything that has physical affect, physically exists. Existence comes in two distinct and separate realms; Physical Realm and Conceptual or Divine Realm. The only physical existence is the situation of the affecting of the situation, the changing of the changing or affecting of the affecting. And because of that, it can be said that the only physically existing cause of anything is the concurrent situation. There is no other cause to anything, ever. One can accurately state that the real God is “The Situation” because it is The Situation (of all reality) that determines all that can and will be (the very definition of a god). And there can be only one true Situation, thus only one true god, aka “The God”.
We often say that “because of this abstract principle or general behavior certain changes will take place”. And when we say it that way, we are inadvertently imposing physical existence upon abstract notions. It isn’t the “general behavior” but rather the particular behavior that brings changes in a given situation. Particular behaviors physically exist in the physical realm while general behaviors or principles conceptually exist in the conceptual realm of existence.
On the other hand, wherever a general behavior is being enacted, that behavior is particular at that moment in that location and physically exists as a causation. So one cannot always separate the general principle from the physical reality. We can say that “the principle of gravity causes things to fall”. Is that true? Does the general principle called “gravity” actually cause anything? Is that general principle being enacted anywhere? Wherever it is being enacted, it physically exists as a cause.
In reference to God, there is the general behavior or principle called “God” and there is the actual concurrent situation called “God”. The concurrent situation throughout the entire universe is always enacting the general principle called “God”. Therefore that general principle must physically exist at all times and in all locations throughout the entire universe. That conclusion can’t be rationally avoided.
So whether a principle is merely a general description or an actual behavioral causation depends upon exactly which principle is being discussed.
When I speak of the general behavior of affectance, because affectance IS the entire universe, that general principle is physically real and a cause of physical changes. Even though it is an abstract notion, it is physically represented literally everywhere and thus is the physical reality.
So meta-objects and principles can be the physically real causality or they might be instead merely abstract descriptions of currently non-existent objects and behaviors.
PtA, Potential-to-Affect, refers to a physical situation, an arrangement of substance, not the substance itself. Space is similar in that regard. As PtA changes, it becomes the physical substance called “affectance”. And PtA is always undergoing changes, being affected as it affects. Affectance is the changing of the PtA situation. Affectance is the changing whereas PtA is the arrangement of the changing that is itself being changed. It is easiest to think of PtA as an electric field and affectance as a electromagnetic wave (EMR). An electric field is merely a situation, not a substance. And an electromagnetic wave is an electric field that is changing.