... one would simply proclaim that God created the Earth/universe recently but with the appearance of age. Because - to quote you — God can do that. In fact this is indeed one of the creationist positions. Omphalism
Yes one could do that, but essentially nobody does. I don't believe very many people are Omphalists. Even the most ardent Bible literalist rejects the idea that God hid old fossils and radioactive materials in the ground just to make the earth appear to be old. Instead, the literalists go the route of simply saying that science is wrong about aging.
GDR seems to take a three pronged approach.
If a theistic claim obviously contradicts scientific findings..
The problem with your logic/description is that you lump all scientific findings in the same boat. I think some scientific findings and conclusions are qualitatively different in basis and logic than others. GDR may actually do some of the things you suggest. I do not know everything he believes, but the particular examples of Jesus feeding a multitude and Creation week do not, in my opinion, fit the pattern you describe.
As a convincing argument for theism or an exercise in critical thinking — Well to put it politely — It leaves a lot to be desired.
I'm not making the argument that you should be convinced. I'm suggesting that GDR's beliefs are not as inconsistent as you describe. What you have laid out is the 'God of Gaps' which is the situation where God diminishes as our knowledge of science becomes more complete.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree; ‘That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heaven goes.’ Galileo Galilei 1615.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass