Integration of creativity and spirituality in higher education : the current situation and a framework for cross-paradigm research

This chapter has considered the problem that previous research into creativity and spirituality has been separated into the two content domains as well as two distinct streams based on phenomenology and empirical psychology, respectively. A question based on the previous "two-stream" problem was whether an integrated approach could be found to overcome divisions between subjective versus objective orientations to reality and orientations to knowledge based on meanings versus causal relationships. Upon investigation, it was found that an intersubjective philosophy had been proposed by Bracken (2009) to bridge these divisions. It is not claimed that Bracken's solution is the only means of coordinating subjective and objective ontologies and/or meaning-based and empirical epistemologies. Nor is this solution necessarily the best. In this chapter it is proposed as one basis for the exploration of creativity and spirituality within the same framework but with the addition of Trinitarian theology for a psychologically meaningful framework.