A word for the fallacy of assuming whatever brings God the most glory is the correct interpretation a text?

Question

I ran across the word somewhere in my reading, but I can't find it. It is a word that has the idea that it is not right to assume that an answer to any given question is right because it is assumed to be the most glorifying to God. While the actual answer, supported by the text, to any exegetical question does give God glory, this word has the idea that it is illogical to use God receiving more glory from a given thing as a support for an interpretation.

Answer 1

Normal (or plain) dispensationalism posits that the glory of God is the all-encompassing purpose of God above and beyond His saving purpose. Ryrie states that

At least in the awareness of most people, hermeneutics is one of the last things to be considered consciously. Most people know something of the doctrines they believe but little of the hermeneutics on which they have been built.

He continues and shows from Scripture that the glory of God is the all-encompassing, total purpose of God above (and beyond) His saving purposes, notwithstanding that "His saving purposes are one of the principal means employed in bringing to pass the greatest demonstration of His own glory." Thus the glory of God becomes the underlying hermeneutical assumption when interpreting the Scriptural texts.

Thus in plain, normal dispensationalism, the emphasis is on the plain, or normal interpretation of Scripture (which some also call the "grammatical-historical" form of interpretation). Thus the glory of God is the unifying principle or hermeneutic by which the dispensationalist interprets the Bible. Critics of dispensationalism cite this approach as a fallacy, and posit instead that God's soteriological purpose is His all-encompassing plan to bring Him glory.

In other words, whether God's ultimate, all-encompassing purpose is to save sinners, or that purpose is His self-glorification (by which saving sinners is part of that self-glorification), will necessarily affect how one interprets the Bible. At this particular point of hermeneutical interpretation is where dispensationalism and covenant theology part ways.

REFERENCE:
Ryrie, Charles Caldwell. "Dispensationalism." (Chicago: Moody Press, 2007), Chapter 5, "The Hermeneutics of Dispensationalism."

Answer 2

I'm not sure what the answer to this is. However, I think it would help to define some terms clearly. What we mean by the word glory or the idea of "bringing glory to God" is critical to getting to a clear answer here. Even for man, having the admonition and praise of other people is not an objective worth pursuing. Receiving recognition and praise from sinful people could not be what bringing God glory means. Man, having a distorted view of God, make Him into their image. Then they may applaud God when circumstances please them and curse Him when they don't. They act as if they are God with a self entitlement issue self centered world view. Sinful man applauding God does not equal bringing God glory. Even, myself, a believer in Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit, find myself ignoring God and forgetting His goodness. That leads to me trying to live the Christian life by my will. Then everything I do, including my attempts to worship Him are futile. I believe even a believer's attempts to worship God do not always result in "bring Him glory." So what does bring God glory. Christ living in and through man is how God gets glory out of man. So what does it mean to interpret His Word in a way that brings Him the most glory?

Answer 3

1. Question Restatement:

A word for the fallacy of assuming whatever brings God the most glory is the correct interpretation a text?

2. Answer - "Rose Colored Lens Fallacy":

"Rose Colored Lens Fallacy:" This conclusion does not satisfy my expectations, and therefore must be wrong.

Yes, I just made that up - and that is a perfectly valid thing to do when naming fallacies - though the name of the fallacy must clearly, and adequately expresses the underlying fault, and is phrased appropriately given the context of that dialogue.

Yes, I just made that up too, (but it is logically valid).

But, to be boring - other "classical fallacies":

I started trying to list some fallacies that arise from this line of thinking, but there are a whole lot.

Eventually, depending on the Syllogism Form, I think one of these might end up present:

Intentionality fallacy – the insistence that the ultimate meaning of an expression must be consistent with the intention of the person from whom the communication originated (e.g. a work of fiction that is widely received as a blatant allegory must necessarily not be regarded as such if the author intended it not to be so.)

False attribution – an advocate appeals to an irrelevant, unqualified, unidentified, biased or fabricated source in support of an argument.

• Existential Fallacy
• Affirming a disjunct
• Affirming the consequent
• Denying the antecedent