What issues do Catholics representing God in fiction historically face?
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Starting off with the Church teaching on images
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church
CCC 2132 The Christian veneration of images is not contrary to the first commandment which proscribes idols. Indeed, "the honor rendered to an image passes to its prototype," and "whoever venerates an image venerates the person portrayed in it."1 The honor paid to sacred images is a "respectful veneration," not the adoration due to God alone:
Religious worship is not directed to images in themselves, considered as mere things, but under their distinctive aspect as images leading us on to God incarnate. The movement toward the image does not terminate in it as image, but tends toward that whose image it is.2
1. St. Basil, De Spiritu Sancto 18,45:PG 32,149C; Council of Nicaea II: DS 601; cf. Council of Trent: DS 1821-1825; Vatican Council II: SC 126; LG 67.
2. St. Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II,81,3 ad 3.
Therefore making of images which Christians may venerate is not contrary to God's commandments, and is in accordance with Church Tradition and practice from the earliest times3.
3. cf. Veneration of Images | New Advent.
In the New Advent articles, we gather that in the first centuries of Christianity, there are no pictures of the Crucifixion except the mock-crucifix scratched by some pagan soldier in the Palatine barracks.
Therefore a picture of the crucifixion can be made to mock in one case and in another for veneration. Also the article quotes Catholic teaching that "we do not pray to relics or images, for they can neither see nor hear nor help us."
Therefore answering
What issues have been brought up by other Roman Catholics in the past as integral to the act of representing God and/or the end times in a fictional work?
In conclusion, the representation is to be made in a way that is in obedience to God's commandments [the first and the second], in accordance with Church tradition and practice, and also done tastefully and in a way that does not offend not only Catholic, but also Christian sensibility4 as well.
4. cf. Jesus Christ Superstar - an utter blasphemy!!! | The personal blog of Rev Brian McClung, Minister of Newtownabbey Free Presbyterian Church & Administrator of Newtownabbey Independent Christian School.
The Last Judgement, a mighty composition, painted by Michelangelo between 1536 and 1541, in the Sistine Chapel.
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Source: stackoverflow.com
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