I don't know if this will help, but here's my understanding of the logic of evolutionary theory:
Evolution is not goal-oriented. Every species that existed prior to the arrival of humans came about by accident. Humans themselves came about by accident. I know it isn't a satisfactory answer to say that we just so happened to develop brains capable of processing complex social ideas, but that's really what happened. Around the time of the emergence of our species, a number of hominids existed that were capable of understanding social queues and each had their own primitive style of habitation that either led to their survival or their extinction. These species were more apt to survive if they could organize, form languages to communicate ideas, and construct ideas that aided their survival. Survival is competition: survival of the fittest. If you have a brain capable of helping you adapt to new situations through communication, you were more fit to survive... With this competition between large-brained hominids, those species that were most capable of controlling their capabilities as social actors were those that survived. In other words, the evolution that got us to this point was not goal-oriented, but our development reached a point where we were able to circumvent evolution and cooperate to achieve goal-oriented tasks. All social constructs like "god" or "politics" or even "gender" have all been created out of our need to organize based on ideas.
For example, a social construction of "farmer" as a category of humans makes it easier to recognize the farmer's purpose and intentions. Everyone knows that a farmer is someone who farms and that without farmers, we would all starve. This gives the idea of the farmer value to a society. Without this recognition of "farmer status," our species would never have been able to expand beyond hunters and gatherers. More importantly, recognizing that someone is not a farmer allows us to denote a separate status to them, maybe "philosopher" or "merchant." And perhaps most important is the fact that without developing a higher sense of self through the concept of status, we would be incapable of comprehending a "god." From here, we witness the end of natural evolution and the rise of social evolution. Societies united by a god or a pantheon of gods were more likely to be socially unified and, therefore, more organized. (And, as you might guess, more organized societies have more productive yields and are more capable of conquering or destroying less organized societies). Social evolution is a process that is ongoing; the current explanation for the collapse of the Soviet Union is the notion that in today's world, "Capitalist" societies are more survivable than "Communist" societies. The transition from Communism to Liberal Democracy represents modern social evolution towards more efficient, more adaptable forms of government. So at times, more theological societies have been more survivable than secular ones, but arguably today, societies with religious freedoms are more survivable.
The reason there are no 'intermediate' species between animals that operate on instinct and animals that operate consciously (as we do) is because we eradicated them all. A core functional component of evolutionary theory is the assumption that we, as social actors, would have recognized other intelligent species as threats to our survival (as nearly all species are in competition with us for survival). The first acts of humankind were to wipe out as many threats to our survival as possible. As humans spread across the globe, we caused the extinctions of millions of species all in an attempt secure ourselves from threats to our survival.
Evolutionary theory is designed to explain the existence of intelligent species, but it offers no explanation of how life began. I would argue that the best place to argue for the existence of a higher consciousness is in life's beginning, not its advancement.
