The player is already a paladin; they have the gods' attention.
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Curses and Mysteries are by default an unknown source of power for Oracles. I have two PFS Oracles that I explain when they got their powers and what the circumstances were, but I am of the opinion that the source of the powers shouldn't be revealed to anybody unless whatever greater power gave it to you straight up appears and tells you.
For my first Oracle, she got her Blackened and Wrecker curses after burning her own village to the ground, and discovered her Life mystery as she dedicated herself to healing those as her repentance. My 2nd oracle was an gnome escaped slave who was pursued and fell into a bask of crocodiles. Instead of getting eaten, he found he could communicate and even befriend him, and the crocodiles fought off the captors. That's how he got his Lycanthropy curse and Lunar mystery.
My suggestion is this- discus what curse(s) and what mystery your player wants. Incorporate a story with how they came to discover their newfound powers. It doesn't have to be tragic, though it usually is to some extent (particularly with the curses), and it doesn't have to be fully explained. There's a reason the class ability is called "Mystery"
One does not choose to become an oracle, one is chosen by a mysterious power. In some cases the person chosen may not even want the power and would rather be left alone. The source of the oracles power does not even have to be known to the oracle.
Just have your character wake up one day and find his entire world has changed. His curse manifests right away, but he may need to take some time to figure out his revelations and spells. So the night before you were completely normal the next morning you find yourself, partially blind, deaf, lame or whatever your curse is. When you encounter a situation where your revelation or spell would be useful you use it instinctively.
If you really want to go all out have becoming an oracle be a punishment. You did not outright break the paladins code, but maybe you skirted to close and your deity chose this as your penance.
Just make sure to choose a curse and mystery that fits the character.
With a paladin, you could have one of the evil deities with cults in the region curse the character to try and keep them from getting too uppity, only to find that the paladin's patron gave them more power to compensate.
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Seen it plenty of times: Iomedae or whoever has some follower that would really like if they could base their speed off of their personality. The deity is to busy with their day job to remember how that works so they ask me, because knowing how stuff like this works is my day job. I tell them the standard way of doing things involves dumping enough power to cast miracle all at once, but that you could probably research a way of doing it that doesn't take anything out to fit in all that spell power the follower's never going to use. They tell me that I should be the one doing the research, I tell them I have a hard time doing research on divine magic because nobody lets me take accurate measurements of their spell-granting aura, and they give up and use the established method.
Trauma. Most likely blunt force to the skull. That's how I'd roleplay it at least.
This thread reminds me of a thread from 2103: How was your Oracle chosen?
The most difficult party about multiclassing to oracle is explaining how the oracle gained his curse. Gaining abilities is a matter of training, of divine favor, or of tapping a hidden inner resource, but no-one seeks a disability. If it were from divine wrath, how come the character also gained beneficial abilities, too?
When my daugher created a battle oracle Anastasia, she made a backstory that Anastasia was on an archeological expedition and opened a jar that contained the essense of a war god. The guardian spirits of that ancient site that were supposed to guard the jar became the haunts for her haunted curse.
In the same campaign, the paladin resurrected a murdered girl who worshipped Desna. The girl came to life as a heavens oracle with the wasting curse, because she had made a deal with Desna. Some of the power of the resurrection mercy was transformed into a connection with the divine. She acquired oracle powers but also ended up partly zombified.
In my Jade Regent campaign, when Amaya Amatatsu touched the holy Amatatsu Seal of her ancestors, those ancestors offered to convert her from half-Cheliax half-Tien genetics to full Tien. She accepted the offer, but by some miscalculation, she ended up disconnected from time, thereby developing time oracle powers and also a variant tongues curse.
I made up a backstory for the NPC Casandalee in my Iron Gods campaign. When androids die, their bodies repair themselves to arise as a new android with very few memories and a new personality. Once when Casandalee died of old age on a sailing ship voyage, the crew did not know this and buried her at sea. When she renewed in the water, she was haunted by sea spirits and became a water oracle. After the death of that incarnation, she renewed as an ancestors oracle who remembered all her past lives and had the rare Shattered Psyche curse (invented in the AP for Casandalee specifically).
I generally treat spontaneous casters very similarly when reasoning why a character would suddenly start manifesting those powers. It goes like this:
You have always had the potential to tap into this power. Maybe at one time in your life, it was at a conscious level and you chose to refuse the power. Perhaps it was merely subconscious and it is only through the recent hardening of your physical body through combat and additional training that allowed you to become aware of this budding power.
Whatever the origins of your power, you have finally made the decision to grasp that power and wield it. For a sorcerer, this can manifest itself as finally accepting that part of yourself and feeling 'whole'. For an oracle, the rush of pure divine energy does not come without consequence. Few mortals were ever meant to wield the power of the gods in such a fragile shell, at least not without the guidance and restrictions imposed on you from the source of your power (gods, nature, etc). Your mind, and body, are ravaged by this pure energy and it leaves you changed (the curse). It is only the uniqueness of your own soul that determines how these changes manifest, but the power you wield is yours alone. However granted, it can not be severed from you.
For a Paladin, specifically, to begin manifesting Oracle casting and powers, my mind goes to one explanation. The same powers that fuel your Paladin abilities are that which you learn to harness, outside of the boundaries of you adherence to the path of Law and Goodness. Instead of channeling them through aligning yourself with the powers, you channel them through your own force of will. You can do both, naturally, but no longer are you merely limited by aligning yourself with Law and Good. Doing this, however, comes with a cost. Those powers were not meant to be used outside of the Oaths and when channeled through other pathways, it leaves a mark.
Has your paladin ever done anything that was of at least questionable morale in your game? It could be that his god had decided to inflict upon him a curse as a reminder of their pact. The spells and powers can just be explained via divine gifts, story-wise they really need not be differentiated from paladin spells.
If not, then maybe get together with your paladin player to come up with a small short side-plot during the next session. Here their character can either do something wrong to obtain the curse or be cursed by a totally different (evil-aligned) divine force. Yes, the Oracle level grants the abilities, but how they were manifested in the story is up to you guys.
It would also give your player a chance to contribute a bit to the story to surprise the other players.
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I'm not sure that is the job of the GM as much as it is of the player. Let them explain how their character attracted the ineffable forces that create oracles and why they chose to follow that path.
There are tons of possible answers to that question.
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To me a cleric seeks out the gods or the institional church and if they are inspired or feel guided, they feel guided to go to seminary.
An Oracle feels or is touched by something they cannot deny, the "still small voice" of intensely personal life changing vision that makes them who they are.
Joan of Arc (assuming she's not a paladin) is an Oracle with a campaign specific "wrong gender" curse, not a cleric.
Odin (looking at him as potential PC, not a god) gives his eye at the well of knowledge to know all. Most people will not remove an eye for ultimate knowledge. That sets him apart.
Moses with a "studdering" curse and an encounter with on Mt Sinai is an Oracle while his brother becomes a cleric.
So in game, do something weird like have dead saints come and talk to you or inflict the blindness curse on yourself in game and roleplay it out, and go hiking and meet a diety.
This is also why, in my "headcannon" more oracles are Chaotic and more clerics are lawful.