The present paper discusses one of the central problems of the western academic study of religion. Relating his experiences of research in and teaching of religious studies for more than two decades, the author analyzes how the academic study of religion is not only a powerful tool for understanding，but possesses a "recoil" mechanism which can affect its user.
The first thing that happens to one who adopts the western academic perspective is loss of innocence because one begins to distance oneself from the naivete of any traditonal perspective.
The second aspcet of the transforming effect of trying to understand religion "from the outside" is based on the academic idea of understanding which accepts the responsibility to communicate to others the meaning of what one understands. By taking the responsibility for both elucidating one's beliefs or tradition to outsiders and interpreting other traditions, interreligious dialouge is possible. Open and honest dialogue can change not only one's understanding of someone else's religon，but also that of one's own faith.
The third stage in the process of transforma- tion，which can be effect of studying religion, arises out of the realization that one's interpreta- tion，from the outside，of a point of view which one does not share，may help someone who shares that viewpoint to understand it better. At this point one discovers that one does not only look at the beliefs and religious traditions of others from the distance of phenomenological "suspense of judgement"，but, having internalized this methodology，one even views one's own beliefs and tradition "from the outside."
As a scholar，the author understands "faith" as a mode of being in the world，and not a set of beliefs consciously held. The scholar's life，in his opinion，is a life of faith, and the vocation of a scholar in the field of religion is a high one.
