Orwell's "Big Brother" might just as well be "Big Father." One of the characteristics of "paternalism" is to possess knowledge of someone to such a degree that one feels qualified to tell the other what life-decisions he or she should make.
If we understand God the Father in these terms, we may feel that God's knowledge of us stifles our freedom. Indeed God knows us in the fashion described in Psalm 139. Before a word is on our tongue, God knows the whole of it. The psalmist, however, is not alarmed by God's knowledge; indeed, this writer of hymns welcomes God's probing of the human heart. Similarly, Psalm 16 anticipates with joy God's showing "the path to life." Freedom is freedom to choose a particular direction. We must take counsel with an all-knowing God if we are to find the right path.
A priest who influenced me greatly in my seminary years wrote a book on basic spirituality and had two ideas for the title. He considered calling it Wrestling with God in order to emphasize the struggle of living an authentic human life in the presence of God. Finally, however, he decided to call it In God's Gentle Arms so as to give first place to God's initiative: God, who is love, communicates to us that the meaning of one's life is to be found in love: the love from which we came, the love toward which we direct ourselves.
Our natural fathers have the opportunity to reflect on their own aspirations and decisions, to see themselves in their sons and daughters, and to be gentle in leading their children by an example of being a genuine person in the sight of God. Natural fathers, as well as those who bear the title "Father," find themselves examining their actions and coming to the conclusion that gentleness furthers a sense of the identity of God which harshness does not.
Although the Hebrew Scriptures at times use the image of father to refer to God, Judaism generally resists identifying God with any particular image. We Christians, on the other hand, speak of God as Father and Son and Holy Spirit. God is Father in his eternal generation of the Son, in the procession of the Holy Spirit of love, and in the authorship of creation.
We Christians therefore take very seriously the notion of God as "Father." This sense of the identity of the first person of the Trinity as "Father" gives us a basis for evaluating earthly fatherhood. Are we, in our roles as "father," calling forth from our children what is best and noblest in the vocation to be instruments of God's peace and love?
To be a father is to enter into a process which, even if it is not the work of creation itself, constantly opens to fathers many hints of how creation is to be fulfilled, and how fathers might cooperate in this work of fulfillment. The children rejoice that the fathers, who look on them with insight into human character, temper a burning gaze with a healing and encouraging love.