Zweck, Ziel, Zufall

Purposes and goals are decisive determinants of human actions. As such, they have always been the subject of philosophy. Aristotle asked for the final goal of life, Kant for the final goal of morality and Hegel for the final goal of history. In these metaphysical concepts of goal and purpose thinking, chance has no philosophical home. It also has no home in the theological metaphysics of creation.
Darwin's theory of evolution, however, marks the beginning of a development in evolutionary thinking, which signalled the end of the old metaphysics. Cosmic evolution especially is a suitable means with which to understand chance as a mode of creative processes of self-organisation and to offer it a philosophical home under the term 'autogenesis'. In it, human freedom and religious faith are to be determined anew—without predetermined purposes and goals.