The trouble is that usually the reason people say Genesis is figurative is because they don’t believe God could really do all of that.
If God is truly omnipotent, if nature and the laws of physics obey Him because He created them, which makes more sense? That God spoke the world into existence, or that He guided seemingly random processes for several million years?
But the bigger issue with taking Genesis chapter 1 figuratively is what it tells us about sin and death - and therefore, our need for a savior.
“Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—”
Romans 5:12 NASB1995
That one man is Adam (which is clear from the surrounding verses) and death enters Creation through Adam’s sin. Death does not exist in the perfect world God created - and thus the cure for death requires sin to be paid for (by Jesus’ death)
Evolution via natural selection requires death upon death to work. So if life on earth came about through natural selection, then death would have to exist before Adam, and thus before Adam and Eve sinned.
So if the idea that sin is what causes death and the forgiveness of sin brings everlasting life is the central theme of Christianity, then Genesis 1 must be literal, or none of the rest of it is.
