I don’t see what is so hard or controversial about observing that the telos or purpose of the universe is to grow purpose like a garden grows crops. We won’t find the purpose by digging into the ground, but nothing at all could grow without that ground. It should also be clear that the crops are not separate from the ground — they are extensions of it in a very real sense — and so the garden is not two things, ground and crops, fused into one. It is one thing that is all of a piece.