Let us begin at the point where God himself began.  He calls himself Father.  Human fatherhood can give us an inkling of what God is; but where fatherhood no longer exists, where genuine fatherhood is no longer experienced as a phenomenon that goes beyond the biological dimension to embrace a human and intellectual sphere as well, it becomes meaningless to speak of God the Father.  Where human fatherhood disappears, it is no longer possible to speak and think of God.  It is not God who is dead; what is dead (at least to a large extent) is the precondition in man that makes it possible for God to live in the world.  The crisis of fatherhood that we are experiencing today is a basic aspect of the crisis that threatens mankind as a whole.  Where fatherhood is perceived only as a biological accident on which no genuinely human claims may be based, or the father is seen as a tyrant whose yoke must be thrown off, something in the basic structure of human existence has been damaged.  If human existence is to be complete, we need a father, in the true meaning of fatherhood that our faith discloses, namely, a responsibility for one's child that does not dominate him but permits him to become his own self.

The God of Jesus Christ - Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)