Evolution is also not only teleological but theological

“The Romantic conception of the transformation and morphogenesis of molecules, plants, and animals, was already fully evolutionary. Schelling spoke of evolution of plants and animals out of the earth by way of a chemical process (see, e.g., p. 168, The Romantic Conception of Life by Robert Richards). Goethe and Coleridge agreed...The reason Darwin is supposed to have discovered the “real” evolution is that his version is a-teleological, based on a conception of nature driven exclusively by efficient causes, while the Romantic theory of evolution is not only teleological, but theological. It breaks the rules of scientific explanation by attributing animation/agency to that which it theorizes. Modern science takes it as a matter of course that nature is without intelligence or intrinsic value...” (“Footnotes to Plato”)

Romantic Naturphilosophen like Goethe, Coleridge and Schelling conceived of nature as a creative archetypal process of generation. They thought “Nature is God and God is Nature” which is not exactly the same Godhood as theological materialism. Theological materialism attributes an inward material agency activating life (Tirips) to continually evolve toward ascending levels of Godhood, while working along with natural selection and evolution.

I think future religion depends on breaking the taboo that evolving life has no teleological or theological goal. Evolution also moves inevitably in a pattern, even though it has its random elements, and the pattern has a discernible direction, in spite of instances of stagnation and retreat, toward higher and higher more effective living forms, all the way to Godhood. Religion becomes an aid in that sacred goal.