Originally posted by Jenyar
God is not a rock, He has a personality. His "personality" is Jesus. Where did Muhammed get his visions from? God, or an angel?
Jenyar there is a logic for how god communicates with us, and we don't have to attribute animal behavior like sonship to god or steam charachteristic or water, ect.. to understand. To directly answer your question concerning Prophet Muhammed, it was Archangel Gabriel transmitting the message behind the veil. But we have to understand many things before we can capture the essence of how god communicated with his prophets in general including Prophet Jesus.
First
All the states and acts of God's noble Messengers bear witness to their prophethood, but not each of them need be miraculous. For God Almighty sent them in the form of a human being so that they might be a guide and leaders to human beings in their social affairs, and the acts and deeds by means of which they attain happiness in both worlds; and so that they might disclose to human beings the wonders of God's art and His disposive power that underly all occurrences and are in appearance customary, but in reality miracles of Power. If, then, they had abandoned the human state in his acts and become paranormal in all aspects, they could not have been a leader, or have instructed human beings with their acts, states and aspects. they were, indeed, honored with paranormal phenomena in order to prove there prophethood to obstinate unbelievers, and, in case of need, occasionally performed miracles. But there miracles never occurred in such an obvious fashion as would have compelled everyone to believe, whether willingly or unwillingly. For, in accordance with the purpose of the tests and trials that man is to undergo, the way must be shown to them without depriving them of free will: the door of the intelligence must remain open, and its freedom must not be snatched from its hand. But if miracles had occurred in so apparent a way, intelligence would have had no choice; coal would have had the value of diamonds, and no purpose would have remained for testing and accountability. It is a source of amazement that while thousands of men of different character came to believe through observing a single miracle, or a single proof of prophethood, or a word of the prophet, or through merely seeing the face of a prophet, for us now a day, we believe by seeing the word in the Quran and Bible. But we need to be carefull to base our faith in truth and to investigate translations, interpretations, bible studies, ect.
Second
God's most noble Messengers are human beings; Moses, Jesus, and Muhammed are all humans. hence they act like a human being. They are also messengers, and from this point of view they are interpreters and envoys of Almighty God and the revelation, which falls into two categories: The first is explicit revelation. In this case, the Most Noble Prophets are merely an interpreter and announcer, and has no share in the content. The Quran and some Sacred Narrations are included in this kind of revelation. The second is implicit revelation. The essence and summary of this is also based on revelation or inspiration, but its explanation and description are left to the Messenger, Jesus teachings fall in that category. When a prophet explains and describes such revelation, sometimes he again relies on the other revelations or inspirations, or sometimes he speaks in terms of his own insight. And, when he resorts to his own interpretation, he either relies on the perceptive power given him on account of his prophetic mission, or he speaks as a human being and conformably to the usage, custom, and level of common comprehension. Thus, all the details of every prophetic narration are not necessarily derived from pure revelation, nor should the lofty signs of messengership be sought in such thoughts and transactions of his as required by his human state. Since some truths are revealed to him in a brief and abstract form, and he himself describes them in the light of his insight and according to common comprehension, the metaphors and allusions in his descriptions sometimes may need explanation, or even interpretation. There are indeed some facts that the human mind can grasp or by way of comparison.
Third
If any related tradition is related by numerous reliable authorities, it is in disputable. This form of relation is called "Unanimous".
There are two kinds of "Unanimous". One is 'pure Unanimous,' the other is 'Unanimous in meaning.' The latter (Unanimous in meaning) is also of two kinds: The first includes those which are 'agreed upon by silence. For example, if a man relates an incident in front of his community, and the listeners do not contradict him, that is, they respond to him by keeping silent, this implies their acceptance of the report. In particular, if that community consists of extremely truthful and honest individuals in such a degree that they would reject any error, consider any lie as reprehensible, criticize any wrong-doing and in addition show an interest in the reported incident, the silence of that community strongly testifies to the incident having indeed occurred.
The second kind of 'Unanimous in meaning' is that which occurs when, for example, different people relate a certain incident in different accounts but are unanimously agreed on the occurrence of the incident. This also becomes Unanimous in meaning, and the actual occurrence of the incident is not harmed by differences in detail. But apart from this there are also cases when a report supplied by even a single person may be regarded as definite, with the degree of Unanimous under some certain conditions: when supported by evidences instead of (many) narrators such a narration also becomes definite.
Most of the reports concerning the miracles and the evidences of the prophethood of God's most noble Messenger fall into the three categories of Unanimous as mentioned above. As for the others, although they are transmitted through the report of only one person, they also have the certainty of Unanimous since they have received the acceptance of the meticulous authorities on tradition. Of such meticulous authorities were those geniuses who were called Al-Hafiz, who had committed to memory at least 100,000 narrations, offered for fifty years their morning-prayer with the ablution of the night-prayer, and produced the Six Accurate Books of narration headed by those of Bukhari and Muslim. [Other 4 books are Sunens of Ebu Davud, Tirmizi, and Nesai, Muvatta of Imam Malik.] Without doubt any report scrutinized and accepted by them cannot fall short of the definitiveness or Unanimous. For they acquired such intimacy with the traditions of God's most noble Messenger, became so familiar with his exalted style and manner that they could at first sight spot a single false narration among several hundred reports, and would reject it, saying, "This cannot be a prophetic narration; it does not have his wording.' Since they were able to recognize the precious qualify of the prophetic narration, like an expert jeweler, there was no possibility of their confusing any other word with that of the Prophet. Some researchers, however, such as Ibn al-Jawzi, went to such extremes in their criticism as to regard many accurate narrations as false. Nevertheless, this does not mean that the meaning of every false wording is wrong; ratter it means that the wording itself is not that of the Prophet.
Fourth
Since none other than God knows the Unseen, God's Messenger too could not know it himself. Instead, God Almighty communicated to him the tidings of the Unseen, and he transmitted them. And since God Almighty is All-Wise and Most Merciful, His Wisdom and Mercy require that most of the matters of the Unseen be veiled or obscure. For in this world events disagreeable to human beings are numerous; prior knowledge of their happening would be painful. It is for this reason that death and the appointed hour of death are left obscure, and the mishaps that are to befall human beings remain behind the veil of the Unseen.
