> So, it's important to remember that, for example, knowledgeable Christians refer to God as the creator in the sense of (1)

I am very curious why you think that - given that the Bible and all common teachings of it that I've ever seen very explicitly define God as the creator in the second sense (Genesis very clearly describes past events - not just Let there be light and so on, which could be taken as metaphors for every day dawning, but also Adam and even and all of their descendants, which are described and were understood throughout history as ancestors, not metaphors). The Jewish calendar is even numbered since the year of creation.

Also, while I'm now atheistic, I received at least basic Eastern Orthodox education in school, and the very explicit notion there was that God was the creator of the universe; I also know modern Catholic teaching explicitly names God as the cause of the Big Bang itself, or whatever else science finds to be the mechanism by which the observable universe formed.

Also, while many do accept the possibility of miracles, even some commonly recurring miracles (like the transformation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ during Holy Communion during every Sunday Mass), the working of the natural world is accepted as ordained by God, but not personally directed by Him - this is quite explicit at least in Catholicism and Orthodoxy, where any direct intervention of God on Earth is seen as a miracle, usually related to a Saint.

Note: I am not saying that there are no Christians that believe what you are saying, or that it somehow runs counter to Christianity. I am only saying that I don't think it is a common understanding of Christianity, even one limited to more literate/knowledgeable Christians; e.g. I don't think the Pope believes what you are saying.