This article examines the general paradigm of the social scientific study of religion. It is argued that the opposition between religion and the social sciences in their classical form may not only be due to the difference of world-views between traditional and modern culture, but, more importantly, the social scientist's methodologically falling into the trap of scientism modeled upon the natural sciences. Quite the contrary, hermeneutical social science, vis-a-vis an agreed-upon social science, suggests a paradigmatic shift to study the meanings of human action, including religion. It is against meaningful action in the historical, cultural context to be reduced to a lawful operation; nor purely objective science of observation and deductive explanation is the object of investigation. Rather, interpretation of human action is undertaken to be a social practice that forms an inter-subjective meaning for a subject in a situation. Flowing from this hermeneutical position, this article further suggests that the social scientific study of religion should refute the positivist goal that one will somehow reduce the complex world of religion just to be an instance of an objective theory or universal law in the social sciences. Rather, the hermeneutical approach begins from the postulate that the web of religious meaning partially constitutes human existence and future to such an extent that it needs to be explicated, clarified, interpreted, and made accessible to public discourse.