It looks like you are wanting both a spellcaster and a mage at the same time. In PF2 you generally have to pick a lane. There are some options like Magus (that lets you do both reasonably well) or Kineticist (that can make magic blasts look vaguely like weapons). But in general you are going to have to pick either weapon use or spellcasting to be primary and the other will be secondary.
Magus would be a decent choice for this. Twisting Tree would give you some interesting options with a staff. You would also have access to Cantrips like Telekinetic Projectile, Shield, and Telekinetic Hand, and spells like Kinetic Ram, Pummeling Rubble, Shockwave, and eventually Wall of Force.
There are plenty of other options to look at as well though.
Air Kineticist would be interesting.
Monk with Ki spells could get you quite a bit of what you are looking for. You could pick up a spellcasting archetype for most of the rest.
Exemplar would be more item-based instead of actual spellcasting, but there are a lot of mystical effects that look a lot like spells if you squint just right.
1. This character promotes order. He fights with a staff or warhammer and is a spell-caster. Most of his effects are telekinetic based: he slams the staff on the ground and enemies are blasted based; he erects a protective barrier; he blasts someone by hitting the weapon on the ground. I don’t think he would wear substantial armor.
I have two images in my head of him: Gandalf the Grey and Thundering Rhino from Kung Fu Panda.
What class(es) should he be? What spells, weapons, armor, archetypes, and feats are best for him? I imagine that he fights for a God, but maybe he doesn’t need to be a divine class in order to do this.
This is kind of hard to do because Warpriest (of Nethys for favored weapon staff and relevant spells) feels like a fit (being a weapon/caster mix) but the Divine spell list doesn't really do a lot of what you're looking at.
Magus could probably do it a little bit, though the small number of spells per day will be very limiting.
You could do it with a spellcasting class and theming/skinning his casting around using the weapon like that, but mechanically it wouldn't do anything.
Monk with a spellcasting archetype would fit, so it'll be a lot easier if you have free archetype. In that case you could also take any martial and add spellcasting to it, or take any spellcaster and add some limited martial ability to it (you can't be great at everything).
2. Which classes allow for the most options when it comes to designing good or strong builds (not necessarily incredibly optimized)? I prefer playing classes which let me figure out which of several paths to take rather than characters with just a few clearly defined options. Thank you!
Most classes tend to have certain styles that they prefer, either based on feats or subclasses. But:
1. Fighter has several styles with feats for them, like 2h, sword & shield, 1h with a free hand for maneuvers, and ranged. The feats are building blocks so you can mix and match however you want and you're not locked in. Fighter is also a very solid out of the box class, so you even if you don't optimize as long as you have high key ability score you're fine.
2. Monk can take multiple stances and build off of them, and even fuse them later into one fancy stance. While which stances you have kind of directs your choices, nothing stops you from taking several (including a ranged one) and switching them up on the fly.
3. Rogue has a bunch of subclasses, but also gets so many skill choices that you can easily add multiple skill actions into your kit. You could have the option to grab/trip/dirty trick/intimidate/feint all in one class and be pretty respectable at all of them.
4. Kineticist gives you a LOT of building blocks to build a character out of. Combine one or more elements, then combine a pile of abilities from those elements. It's a complex class to build because of that, but it's got a ton of flexibility in terms of what you actually end up with.
I think those are the easiest in terms of "here's lots of building blocks that don't heavily constrain you and will give a good character", but a lot of PF2 classes are capable of it.
If you have free archetype this really opens up because you can do something like make a Bard, throw Wrestler Archetype on it, boost Athletics, and suddenly you've got a spellcaster that can also suplex enemies. Optimized? Not really. Awesome and fun? Absolutely!
I had an Extinction Curse player do this with a Champion: part of how they tanked for the party was literally wrestling dinosaurs so they couldn't run away from him to attack someone else and it was epic. Also saw a Gymnast Swashbuckler grappling with a Bulette to protect the Halfing Cleric from it and it was epic.
There's a lot of archetypes that aren't hard to get into and give your character a boost to something that isn't their core thing but can make it a fun part of their toolset.
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Being martial primary and spellcasting secondary opens things up a lot. At that point, the choice of light or no armor holds more weight. You can add a spellcasting archetype to a martial character fairly easily.
Monk is probably the best choice for no-armor. Getting Monk to use a staff wouldn't be terribly hard. Using a hammer would be more challenging.
Thaumaturge and Exemplar come with some mystical abilities of their own without any spellcasting archetype needed. They will want armor though. Light armor at least, maybe even medium armor.
There are several other light armor martial classes that would work fine too. Rogue and Swashbuckler come to mind. Like Monk, getting them to use a staff wouldn't be too hard, but having them be effective with a heavy weapon like a hammer would be more challenging.
If you want to step outside the box a bit... Barbarian: Elemental (air) with Kineticist archetype. You would probably want medium armor, but you would get the hammer and some air Impulses that can look a lot like telekinesis.
You only get one primary class. You can pick up some abilities of other classes (such as the ability to cast spells) from multiclass archetypes.
And yeah, picking up some spellcasting from archetypes is pretty good. Your spellcasting won't be your primary tool for defeating enemies - especially very challenging enemies. Your spell Rank will lag behind what primary spellcasters are throwing out and your proficiency and spellcasting stat will as well. So both your damage dealt/healed and your accuracy at landing damage or other hostile effects will be a bit lower.
But it can add a lot of utility, and some good options for less challenging enemies. Plus it adds a ton of flavor for the character that you want.
The feat cost isn't too bad, and it can vary depending on how deep into the spellcasting you want to go. The Dedication will get you a couple of cantrips such as Telekinetic Projectile and Shield. And if that is as far as you want to go, you can leave it at that and spend the rest of your feats on Monk stuff. A second feat can get you up to Rank 3 spells. A third feat will get you higher Rank spells or other feats from the archetype class - as well as freeing you for a second archetype if you really want something else outside of Monk or your spellcasting class archetype.
And as Tridus mentioned, Free Archetype is a popular character build variant that will let you take your spellcasting archetype without impacting your Monk build at all.
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Everyone else has given some good advice about the character itself so I'm going to needle in a bit about the "good builds" part.
In PF2e, everything you need for a character to be good is more or less given to you for free. You'll notice the abilities that increase your DC or attack rolls are all baked in. Just getting those will keep you above water, albeit without much interesting to do.
Hence, when it comes to your feats, going vibes based is perfectly fine and won't shoot you in the foot.* In my opinion, the only way to make a bad build is to be actively trying or to disregard common sense by increasing the wrong ability scores.
This forum does like to quibble about whether this or that option is bad, but the level of variance people are talking about (for the most part) is one or two percentage points, compared to the kind of variance seen elsewhere.
*There are a small handful of options, especially those that encourage casters to be using weapons that are an exception to this, but even then, they'll be dead feats you could retrain, not an active burden.
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Building on what BotBrain wrote, I'd say the only way to build a bad PC is to focus where its class doesn't have Proficiency advancement. This has a bigger impact on casters since martial MCDs & combat style archetypes don't increase one's proficiency, but caster MCDs do (albeit slowly, not gaining Expert until 12th!). (And there's the major investment needed to toughen up a non-martial class to survive in melee.)
Luckily Monks with Ki Spells naturally progress their casting proficiency faster than an MCD, have Ki Blast, wield a staff (or bo staff) well, and cast using Wisdom which meshes well with a Druid's Primal casting which while it lacks Force/TK abilities, does have ample air abilities that appear similar. Ex. Gale Blast cantrip, which though it starts w/ low damage ramps up well and combos fine w/ Flurry (when surrounded). Though yeah, I wouldn't ignore Barbarian as mentioned as at 6th you could do an area blast every combat (either Elemental or Dragon). Also note that Champion (+Sorcerer) & Ranger (+Druid) can mirror much of this as does a Magus or Warpriest, but Monk aligns more with your description and has lots of agency on the battlefield.
Putting up defensive barriers has a range of options, from something small (but valuable) like a Shield Cantrip (perhaps acquired through an Ancestry) to battlefield-altering walls and such...which leans more into pure casting (unless you're very patient). If you do emphasize casting (since you don't mention actually hitting your enemies w/ weapons), you could carry the staff or hammer as (mechanically unnecessary) props your PC uses for their Manipulate casting actions. Many casters carry a staff anyway. Ignoring Strikes opens up many casting classes w/ Arcane & Occult having the most Force & telekinetic spells. Since you're thinking of a tight set of abilities, I'd recommend Sorcerer (already considered one of the strongest casters). Air Elemental Bloodline can emulate like mentioned above while Dragon would work w/ Arcane or Occult + a dragon type that breathes Force damage.
When it comes to deciding between martial or caster, ask yourself what you want your PC to resort to when the boss enemy has crippled your allies or you're trapped with a horde. Do you swing with all your might or unleash your most powerful magic? (Or both in one combo Strike-blast as in the case of the Magus). One might also ask if you move forward or move back, the former of which requires a tough build only a martial class can provide (and not all of them).
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You might want to consider a Sorcerer with a Bard archtype, or a Bard with a Sorcerer Archtype.
Both use Charisma as their casting stat, and that leads to Deception, Diplomacy & Intimidation skills.
The Bard will give you Occult class spells, and the Sorcerer will give you any other spell list you want.
You buy a usefull staff at 3rd level and use the extra spells it gives you (the Bard's 'staff' is flavored as a flute).
You don't want to get into combat much with such a character, although there are some options to build for.