I think you've touched on some interetsing points here, David. The more I work and lay in virtual worlds the more I come to think of of God as less of a creator and more of a programmer.

As a programmer creates a virtual world they must first create its underlying code, a series of mathematical laws which it must obey or it would fall apart. If they then fill this world with creatures these must then have an underlying code that tells them how to behave and react. They are not cognitive, only relying on the 'instinct' of their routines.

Now lets say the programmer wants to create a world that can function without direct input from the programmer. They would implement what we call procedural generation, that is the automation of data creation within predefined parameters. This is how Minecraft creates a different world every time you play. This generation can be applied to creatures as well as the environment allowing them to evolve and develop strategies in real-time to chaos, that is the random and unpredictable actions of the player.

If left for sufficiently long enough with the right conditions these NPCs might even develop their own cognitive functions. Curious about how their world functioned they would be able to look beneath their polygons and find the code that keeps their world held together.

Now lets rewind the clock to the last few centuries. Scientists, understandably hungry to dscover more about how the world and the universe ticked lifted the veil. And what did they find? Mathematical laws that the universe has to obey. A self-replicating code within all life forms telling it how to behave and grow. A way for life to procedurally generate and evolve to changes in its habitat and environment.

If the virtual world in the example must have a programmer to first create it, does it not stand to reason that reason that ours must too?

I thoroughly recommend reading Questions of Truth by Prof. John Polkingborne (Former Prof. of Mathematics Physics at Cambridge) and The Runes of Evolution by Prof. Simon Conway Morris (Prof. of Evolutionary Paleontology at Cambridge) who are both highly regarded academics but also noted theists.