Toll houses: gnosticism or revealed truth?

[Stabat Mater dolorosa]

Also don't take it too personal. Here is a Taylor Swift song to show I bring peace:

Not that I'm not loving both her beauty aswell as her music, but I'm rooming so unfortunately I'm not going to spend data on watching it.
That being said, let's depart as brethren with love for one another.

I don't think I'll bring out the best in you if I keep on pushing this issue, besides I'm a guest in your safehaven. If I got carried away in this thread and violated your hospitality, then please forgive me.


in Christ our Lord
- Matthew

 

[Not David]

Not that I'm not loving both her beauty aswell as her music, but I'm rooming so unfortunately I'm not going to spend data on watching it.
That being said, let's depart as brethren with love for one another.

I don't think I'll bring out the best in you if I keep on pushing this issue, besides I'm a guest in your safehaven. If I got carried away in this thread and violated your hospitality, then please forgive me.


in Christ our Lord
- Matthew

Thanks! I really don't care about the whole argument. Paz!

 

[Jude1:3Contendforthefaith]

You might enjoy this thread Stabat :

Your View on The Aerial Toll Houses (Orthodox Only Please)


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[ArmyMatt]

yes, the toll houses properly understood is the teaching. it's all over the place in the Fathers, hymns, the Philokalia, etc. no saint denies them.

the problem is that it is easy to speculate about when taken literally, which the toll house deniers typically do.

 

[Knee V]

Yes so I've read, but that's not the point. Why believe in this and not Fatima or Guadalupe? It's the same theological reasoning and they're all based on seers and nothing else.

Same goes for Purgatory. Many seers, good pious people have had visions of purgatory, but that doesnt provide it any legitimacy alone.

My previous comment might have been misleading as far as what I meant to convey.

I simply meant that whether one talks about "toll houses" or not, the Apostolic teaching is what it is. It is not based on private visions or revelations. When we die we are gathered and escorted by an angel, as Christ teaches on several occasions. The Orthodox Apostolic teaching is that the demons try to tempt us until their very last opportunity, and they continue to do so while we are being escorted.

 

[Rusviking876]

Protopresbyter Michael ( Pomezhandky) who supports the tolls says they are not precise theology or dogma but a teaching tool. For those of us who discard this doctrine this is good to know.

http://orthodoxhistory.info/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Orthodox-Dogmatic-Theology.pdf#page185

(page 169 of the pdf).

We have enough to worry about in working out our salvation ( Philippians 2:12 etc.) and how this concept trusting in the Lord ( Ephesians 2:8-10) I will never understand.

The tollhouses apparitions are not a good teaching tool for several reasons.
1. God's mercy is absent and demons are granted far more power than the faith allows. Demons have the power to send images, not to snatch us away at the last minute.
2. It has outright gnostic elements.
3. It's designed to make us afraid to die and paranoid about sins we might have remnants of. Especially in post-modernity, we are all flawed sinners.
4. God cannot be involved in anything that is unjust.

 

[ArmyMatt]

The tollhouses apparitions are not a good teaching tool for several reasons.
1. God's mercy is absent and demons are granted far more power than the faith allows. Demons have the power to send images, but not to judge men.
2. It has outright gnostic elements.
3. It's designed to make us afraid to die and paranoid about sins we have. Especially in post-modernity, we are all flawed sinners.
4. God cannot be involved in anything that is unjust.

1. untrue. it's God's mercy that allows the demons to approach, so that we turn immediately to Him.

2. that's like saying the Resurrection has pagan Egyptian elements.

3. untrue, actually St Theognostos in the Philokalia says it's the opposite. it's so we know the demons powerlessness despite their efforts.

4. it's not unjust.

 

[buzuxi02]

Is it mostly a greek thing you'd say?

It's more popular amongst monastic circles where the struggle between good and evil is more pronounced. Spiritual warfare amongst ascetics is portrayed as more literal. Typically in the Russian tradition certain elements are taken more literally than in the Greek. Met. Ierotheos Vlachos view is actually a synthesis between the two.

 

[Rusviking876]

1. untrue. it's God's mercy that allows the demons to approach, so that we turn immediately to Him.

2. that's like saying the Resurrection has pagan Egyptian elements.

3. untrue, actually St Theognostos in the Philokalia says it's the opposite. it's so we know the demons powerlessness despite their efforts.

4. it's not unjust.

1. Demons and angels are not equals. Demons cannot judge man, only God can. From my understanding the Tollhouse theory argues that demons can still drag us down to hell? Sounds like the demons are running the entire show there, which cannot be true.

2. The Tollhouse theory is not dogma unlike the Ressurection so that's an exaggeration. The labyrinth from the story is an ancient symbol of Gnostic initiation, definitely not Orthodox in my humble opinion.

3. So we can rest easy? Then what was the point?

 

[ArmyMatt]

1. Demons and angels are not equals. Demons cannot judge man, only God can. From my understanding the Tollhouse theory argues that demons can still drag us down to hell? Sounds like the demons are running the entire show there, which cannot be true.

2. The Tollhouse theory is not dogma unlike the Ressurection so that's an exaggeration. The labyrinth from the story is an ancient symbol of Gnostic initiation, definitely not Orthodox in my humble opinion.

3. So we can rest easy? Then what was the point?

1. demons do no judgement ever. if they drag a soul to hell, it's by God's providence alone that they are allowed to do it.

2. just pointing out that it's a weak argument to say it's not Orthodox because it's found in earlier pagan sources.

3. so that we can prepare.

 

[Rusviking876]

1. demons do no judgement ever. if they drag a soul to hell, it's by God's providence alone that they are allowed to do it.

2. just pointing out that it's a weak argument to say it's not Orthodox because it's found in earlier pagan sources.

3. so that we can prepare.

Prepare for what? Christ and the Theotokos are absent from the dream. There is no mercy, only the weighing of deeds good and bad. This is the opposite of Christianity and makes the Cross of no effect. Very disturbing.

I have a great respect for Fr. Seraphim Rose but cannot agree with him here.

 

[AMM]

Question about toll houses - while we are being escorted and accompanied by our guardian angel, if a demon tempts us and we fall into sin at that moment, do we still have hope to be saved? Or is the teaching that, if we sin there with their temptations then we will be damned, because we can no longer repent?

 

[Rusviking876]

1. untrue. it's God's mercy that allows the demons to approach, so that we turn immediately to Him.

2. that's like saying the Resurrection has pagan Egyptian elements.

3. untrue, actually St Theognostos in the Philokalia says it's the opposite. it's so we know the demons powerlessness despite their efforts.

4. it's not unjust.

Do you take it literally? Even if it's only a metaphor, a metaphor is not meant to confuse and distress us.

 

[ArmyMatt]

Prepare for what? Christ and the Theotokos are absent from the dream. There is no mercy, only the weighing of deeds good and bad. This is the opposite of Christianity and makes the Cross of no effect. Very disturbing.

I have a great respect for Fr. Seraphim Rose but cannot agree with him here.

there is more to the toll houses than a single vision. Fr Seraphim even says in his book not to take it literally. you can't agree with him because you're not addressing the issue as he does (or Fr Hopko, Elder Cleopa, St Sophrony, the Philokalia, etc.)

 

[ArmyMatt]

Do you take it literally? Even if it's only a metaphor, a metaphor is not meant to confuse and distress us.

no, I don't take it literally. but it's not a just simple metaphor. and it doesn't confuse or distress, unless you take it literally.

 

[buzuxi02]

From my understanding the Tollhouse theory argues that demons can still drag us down to hell? Sounds like the demons are running the entire show there, which cannot be true.

This above is more alegorical interpretation. In St. Gregory of Nysaa on the state of the soul and ressurection, he explains the passions have a kindred with the brutes (the lower nature). Thus it's less about us being dragged by demons than we going towards them due to familiarity. St. Gregory writing explains:
.. I think our Lord teaches us this; that those still living in the flesh must as much as ever they can separate and free themselves in a way from its attachments by virtuous conduct, in order that after death they may not need a second death to cleanse them from the remnants that are owing to this cement of the flesh, and, when once the bonds are loosed from around the soul, her soaring up to the Good may be swift and unimpeded, with no anguish of the body to distract her. For if any one becomes wholly and thoroughly carnal in thought, such an one, with every motion and energy of the soul absorbed in fleshly desires, is not parted from such attachments, even in the disembodied state; just as those who have lingered long in noisome places do not part with the unpleasantness contracted by that lengthened stay, even when they pass into a sweet atmosphere. So it is that, when the change is made into the impalpable Unseen, not even then will it be possible for the lovers of the flesh to avoid dragging away with them under any circumstances some fleshly foulness; and thereby their torment will be intensified, their soul having been materialized by such surroundings.

 

[buzuxi02]

St. Gregory the Dialogist uses a more literal view in one of his chapters but explains what it all means:

...Likewise, upon the same bridge he said that he did see this Stephen, whom before we spake of, who being about to go over, his foot slipped, and half his body hanging beside the bridge, he was of certain terrible men, that rose out of the river, drawn by the legs downward: and by certain other white and beautiful persons, he was by the arms pulled upward: and whiles they strove thus, the wicked spirits to draw him downward, and the good to lift him upward, he that beheld all this strange sight returned to life, not knowing in conclusion what became of him. By which miraculous vision we learn this thing concerning the life of Stephen, to wit, that in him the sins of the flesh did strive with his works of alms. For in that he was by the legs drawn downward, and by the arms plucked upward, apparent it is, that both he loved to give alms, and yet did not perfectly resist the sins of the flesh, which did pull him downward: but in that secret examination of the supreme judge, which of them had the victory, that neither we know, nor he that saw it. (Bk4 ch.36)

 

[Lukaris]

What is something to consider is when this “toll” concept was defined. It seems that it was defined later from earlier inferences; when I do not know. It seems to be at home within Gnosticism at an early point as evident in the Gnostic apocalypse of Paul:

The Apocalypse of Paul -- The Nag Hammadi Library

Maybe the Gnostics hijacked it; I do not know. To those it helps, God speed but it does not help all of us.

 

[Stabat Mater dolorosa]

You know, if comparing it to the theology of purgatory (which is doubtful too) it comes of as to demon and occult centered.
In western theology it's all about Christ and his healing powers. In purgatory ones being purified in the light of God, and God is very present.
God accompanies the souls going through this process, he comfort them and his presence is everything.

In the toll house theology it's much closer to a part of the theology that we refer to as satanology. The demons enter the front stage and get to test humans as in trials. Its absurd and unsound.
Traditionally the weighting of good deeds and sins are made by the Archangel Michael, not demons.

Demons are having a field day with unbelievers and unrepentant Christians. It doesnt add up. Why does God give them power over humans after the human has died? Satans powers are traditionally seen as limited to the earth after he got kicked out of heaven.

This idea that Satan rules hades is heretical. So, Satan and his angles are kings and knights of the netherworld? Well, how is this defended theologically?

It's the post mortem aspect of the toll houses that I find gnostic and heretical. It's good reasons to believe that the devil torments people on their deathbed, but not unhindered by the angels and Gods presence. It's a spiritual war going on. It's not as if anyone gets off the hook regarding the end of life trials.
Even great saints have had great anxiety when approaching death.

I simply believe in the mercy and sovereignty of Christ in a much more fundamental way than some Orthodox does. It's no room for the huge powers of Satan except from this world. I believe Satans powers are now limited to time and space.

 

[Rusviking876]

no, I don't take it literally. but it's not a just simple metaphor. and it doesn't confuse or distress, unless you take it literally.

If it isn't meant literally, what does it even mean then?