God: More than our Santa Claus

Packer on God as some kind of cosmic Santa Claus:

"Yet the Santa Claus theology carries within itself the seeds of its own collapse, for it cannot cope with the fact of evil. It is no accident that when belief in the 'good God' of liberalism became widespread, about the turn of the twentieth century, the so-called problem of evil (which was not regarded as a problem before) suddenly leaped into prominence as the number one concern of Christian apologetics.

This was inevitable, for it is not possible to see the good will of a heavenly Santa Claus in heartbreaking and destructive things like cruelty, or marital infidelity, or death on the road, or lung cancer. The only way to save the liberal view of God is to dissociate him from these things and to deny that he has any direct relation to them or control over them; in other words, to deny his omnipotence and lordship over his world. (Emphasis mine) Liberal theologians took this course fifty years ago, and the man on the street takes it today. Thus he is left witha kind God who means well but cannot always insulate his children from trouble and grief.

When trouble comes, therefore, there is nothing to do but grin and bear it. In this way, by an ironic paradox, faith in a God who is all goodness and no severity tends to confirm men in a fatalistic and pessimistic attitude to life."

People, in order to have the goodness of God, the severity of God has to exist. Praise Him for rescuing us from His wrath through the Son's sacrifice of himself.