When we speak about God our father, it is not just a metaphor.
It is a feeling of integral belonging to the source of the family.
This makes for a stronger family, of course.
Nevertheless, we continue to behave just like an ordinary family.
Like all children, we pass through periods of admiring father and periods of fighting with father, even hating father.
We can never come to the point at which we deny the existence of our father.
Of course, some children may express this denial as a mark of revolt and various members of the family may react in different ways.
Sometimes members of the family are very angry at such blasphemy.
Sometimes they just wait for the young blood to boil down a little bit.
But always, whether one hates or loves, whether one is an ardent believer or a convinced heretic, one remains his father’s child.
–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz