As I see it, the rules that were set at the beginning and shape/rule all what followed (and will continue to do so until this universe perishes), made the humankind inevitable from the very outset. Thus, it's equally true that at the beginning everything existed as a potential (or pure information), as it is also true that it existed like a chicken which is already contained in the egg.

Hence, I can sort of understand where creative design comes from, but there certainly is no entity sitting somewhere pondering blueprints of universe, much less patting things and creatures from clay -- the blueprint is the universe itself, which is in essence no other than God. (Though not the God -- you cannot point at universe and say, "That's God." Perhaps body of God? Yet, even that is not exactly it.) But I digress.

Nevertheless, I would also say that we can perhaps add a fifth level of understanding / interpretation to those four, which would be scientific. After all, the information-energy-matter equivalence, the thermodynamic laws that talk about conservation of energy, as well as the fact that information is indestructible are totally in line with all those four interpretations. And for me that fifth interpretation gives the whole story a pretty palpable, skin-in-the-game like quality. Or, as I like to say, God is a hard-core materialist. Ironically, even that creation from clay is sort of true in this light, when we consider abiogenesis.

Hence, I see no contradiction. God literally created humankind (although "turned himself into" would be probably a more fitting phrase). It only took billions of years and vast amounts of space. But taken the initial conditions, in which (also) humankind was encompassed, humankind could not turn out in a different way. It was already created even though it didn't exist in the shape and form as we know it today. There is a saying somewhere in Hindu lore that creation is only manifestation of that which already exists. Seems quite on point.

So, those are roughly my thoughts :)