Origen, is considered by some to be the first and greatest of all Christian theologians. He lived circa 200 - 250 CE; taught that readers of the bible must learn to distinguish between stories that are true and factual (like the crucifixion of Jesus and the cleansing of the temple) and those that are true and but not factual (like the story of the good Samaritan and the prodigal son.) Origen refused to accept that light and darkness existed before there were a sun and moon and stars. He refused to believe that the maker of heaven and earth couldn't find Adam and Eve when they hid from him. Origin believed that these absurdities - as he called them, were hints that God wanted these stories to be read in an all together different way, 'not as history but as Truth in the semblance of history' as he put it. Truth embedded in metaphor, parable, poetry and fiction is true even if not factual.
I resonate with the idea, articulated by Nancey Murphy, that the literal adherence to Intelligent Design [AKA Creationism 2.0] is tragic. Vast numbers of people have come to the conclusion that evolution and Christianity can't both be true. When they find their way into science classes and recognize the validity of the evolutionary theory, they think that in order to respect their intellect, they must reject religion.
Science is concerned primarily with natural causes for the things it observes; it is all about the when and how, but not about whom. The whom, and the nature of our special relationship to God is what the creation stories were trying to communicate, not the specifics of how.
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