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As far as miracles are concerned, especially in light of discoveries of quantum physics, perhaps miracles are simply events the causes of which we do not grasp from our perspective in space and time. For all we know, they may be perfectly "natural" -- as you define it (i.e., game board plus rules) -- but we don't know how they occur.

Translate your supposition into a form that can be researched. What would you expect to find that will not be found by mainstream research? How is the supposition that God set up the game board different from the supposition that the game board is what we see and study?

Common descent contradicts Genesis, which says that each creature reproduces "after its own kind," and only its own kind. That doesn't necessarily mean that each species had to be specially created by God. And it doesn't rule out evolution. It just rules out common descent.

Any reading of Genesis that rules out common descent is simply wrong. Either Genesis is wrong, or the reading is wrong. This is no different than asserting that a literal reading of the Bible is wrong if it concludes that the sun rises in the east and the earth does not move. If facts are incompatible with the literal interpretation, it is time to reconsider how the text should be read.

How is the supposition that God set up the game board different from the supposition that the game board is what we see and study?

Scientists are avid to discover the causes of things -- except for the cause of the entire "ball of wax," the universe ("the game board"). Then suddenly it becomes a matter of, "That's not a scientific question."

Huh??? Are scientists saying that every natural thing has a cause, but the sum total of all natural things -- the universe -- does not? That the universe has no beginning (no cause) and no end but is simply a random, material process running on forever?

Then where did the matter come from, and where did "the guide to the system," the natural laws, come from? You did declare to believe in natural laws ("the rules of the game"). But if you do, how do you square this with the supposition that the universe and the life in it is a random process?

You wrote: "If facts are incompatible with the literal interpretation, it is time to reconsider how the text should be read." I'd suggest that a literal reading of Genesis is the wrong way to approach the text. Genesis is not an instruction manual or a user's guide, to be read literally strictly for information purposes. Better to engage these texts with the aid of the Holy Spirit, which anyone can humbly invoke ("seek and ye shall find; ask, and it shall be given unto you"). Then we might really get somewhere.

Funny thing is, cross-references to modern physics has, if anything, made me appreciate the genuine authority of Genesis all the more.