Much more often, our image of God is related not to those experiences of love, of joy, or of union, but it’s related to experiences of authority and punishment. A young child is taught to think of God as a sort of super parent. The very word we use about God of course, Father, carries with it, in most children’s upbringing, an image of a person in the family who does the correction, who does the discipline. The idea of God as Father carries with it, therefore, this sense of control, this sense of dominance. And where there is punishment or this kind of relationship to authority, there is usually fear. We fear being punished; we fear being sent to hell.
(Aspects of Love 2 by Laurence Freeman OSB )
