Knowledge as a Spiritual Practice

For Sor Juana, the pursuit of knowledge was inseparable from her pursuit of God—not in spite of her faith, but as its expression. She viewed intellectual work as a form of prayer and reverence for divine creation. This concept reframes knowledge acquisition from a threat to faith into a legitimate spiritual practice. For those in religious transition, this opens possibilities beyond the binary of believer versus skeptic. A person can leave institutional religion while maintaining a contemplative, knowledge-seeking relationship with transcendence. Conversely, a believer might deepen faith through rigorous study rather than diminish it. For doubters, this concept legitimizes the spiritual value of questioning itself—the practice of inquiry as devotion. Sor Juana demonstrates that intellectual hunger need not be opposed to spiritual hunger; they can be expressions of the same fundamental orientation toward truth, meaning, and connection to something larger than oneself.