Dueling Divrei Torah

I came across an interesting idea about God's plurality in the book The Rabbi as Symbolic Exemplar. The book went in one direction, but I took two conclusions away, that are not compatible with each other. One is a humanistic interpretation, and another is a Maimonides-ian interpretation.

The verses in question are "נעשה אדם בצלמינו כדמותינו" "Let us make man according to our image, according to our likeness" (Gen 1:26) and "ויברא אלוהים את האדם בצלמו" "God created man in God's image" (Gen 1:27).

The biggest problem is that God is portrayed as being plural "Let us" and singular "God created." How do we deal with the fact that God can be plural, if the cornerstone of Judaism is "Hear O Israel, Adonai is our God, Adonai is ONE" (Duet 6:4).

My humanistic approach is that each individual person represents one part of God. Each person that ever lived, or ever will live, is one part of God. That is the plurality of God. All of the people of the world represent Gods plurality. On the other hand, humanity represents Gods unity. We are all humans, and even though we are unique, we are still part of humankind; so we are all the same in that aspect. When it says "Let us create man," it represents us creating life and continuing the human race. When God created man, God was creating humankind. All of us are living representations of parts of God, and God is represented by all of humanity together. God exists because humanity exists.

Another interpretation of this can be taken by using one of Maimonides 13 principles of faith. Maimonides maintains that God knows everything that will ever happen. God has seen to the end of time and is omniscient. God also is believed to exist outside of time. Instead of being everlasting, which implies existing for all time, God is eternal, which means God cannot be described in terms of time. If we accept these assumptions, that God is omniscient eternal, then when God created the world, God already knew everything about all living things that would exist, including all people. That means that parts of God included the knowledge of each one of us that exists today, along with everyone else that existed or will exist. Therefore, when God said "Let us create man in our likeness, according to our image," God was talking with us. God's knowledge included us and we were part of the thought of our creation. When God did the actual creation, God did it alone, because we did not yet exist. Since God knew of us before creation, we played a role in our own creation, and bringing ourselves to exist. Since God is able to exist outside the realm of what we can imagine, it is acceptable to believe that God could know that we would exist, even before we did.

I don't know that I necessarily believe either of these interpretations. I like the humanistic idea, but it does not feel totally satisfactory to me because it minimizes God to the point of only existing because people exist. I like the Maimonides idea, but struggle to accept the existence of an omniscient, eternal God.

Which one do you like?