Epistemic Justice and the Right to Wonder

Sor Juana's core claim—that women have the right to study, think, and contribute to theological knowledge—asserts epistemic justice: the right to be heard and taken seriously as a knower. This concept applies directly to religious doubt. Doubters are often treated as epistemically unjust: their questions are dismissed as temptation, their evidence-based concerns treated as lack of faith, their honest seeking invalidated. Sor Juana's life and legacy assert that epistemic justice is a prerequisite for authentic faith. People cannot genuinely believe in traditions that refuse to take their questions seriously. For believers in the doubter phase, claiming epistemic justice means insisting: my questions matter, my observations count, my reasoning is valid. For those leaving, it means recognizing that departure may be the only way to maintain epistemic integrity when one's community systematically invalidates one's way of knowing. This reframes the doubter-to-leaver journey as not a failure of faith but a victory of intellectual honesty.