Faith and Dissidence in Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

This chapter applies the related ideas of “heterodoxy” and “paradox” to Sor Juana's personal understanding of her Catholic faith. Sor Juana pushes the boundaries of orthodoxy without necessarily crossing lines into the heretical. With her faithful dissent, Sor Juana attempts to expand the range of acceptable activity for women in the church. I argue that Sor Juana's Christian and Baroque outlook provides her the ideal context to embrace paradox as a tool that allows her to cope with heterodoxy, which she adopts as a midpoint of non‐conformity somewhere between orthodoxy and heresy. Through paradox, Sor Juana defends the ability and right to dissent while remaining within the church.