The Power of Connectors: Enhancing Clarity and Coherence in Writing 

"William Lane Craig"

Learning focused on prepositions and conjunctions is a key strategy for improving fluency and comprehension in a language, especially in English, where these words play a crucial role in sentence structure.

Why is it important to learn prepositions and conjunctions?

1. Grammatical structure:
   Prepositions connect nouns, pronouns, or noun phrases with other parts of the sentence, indicating relationships like place, time, cause, or direction (e.g., "in the room," "at night," "because of the rain").
   Conjunctions link words, phrases, or clauses together, allowing us to form complex and coherent ideas ("and," "but," "because," "although").

2. Clarity in communication:
   Using prepositions and conjunctions correctly ensures that the relationships between ideas are clear. A mistake can completely change the meaning of a sentence. For example:

   • "I am waiting for you" (waiting for someone) is different from "I am waiting on you" (depending on someone).

3. Fluency in speaking and writing:
   Mastering these words helps sentences flow naturally without awkward pauses, making your speech or writing more polished and professional.

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Strategies for learning prepositions and conjunctions

1. Context is key:
   Learn prepositions and conjunctions within phrases and real-life situations. For instance, memorize common expressions like "at the office," "on time," "due to" instead of isolated lists.

2. Practice with real examples:
   Read texts, listen to conversations, or watch shows, focusing on how these words are used. For example, underline prepositions and conjunctions as you read and think about their role in each sentence.

3. Organize by function:
   Divide the words based on their purpose:

   • Prepositions of place: on, in, at, over.
   • Prepositions of time: before, after, during.
   • Conjunctions of contrast: but, however, although.
   • Conjunctions of cause-effect: because, therefore, so.

4. Games and exercises:
   Use interactive activities like filling in the blanks or reordering sentences to practice in a fun way.

5. Create your own sentences:
   Write examples using the prepositions and conjunctions you're learning. This will help you internalize their correct usage.

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Common mistakes and how to avoid them

1. Confusing prepositions in English with those in your native language:
   For example, in English we say "good at math" (not "good in math"). Read and listen to authentic English to get used to these differences.

2. Using conjunctions unnecessarily:
   Avoid redundancy like "but however" or "and also." Learn when each word is sufficient on its own.

3. Using literal translations:
   Some prepositions don’t have direct translations ("I am on the bus" doesn’t mean you're physically “on top” of the bus).

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Learning and mastering prepositions and conjunctions might seem difficult at first, but with consistent practice and focus, it will become a natural skill that transforms your ability to express yourself in English

As a boy I wondered at the existence of the universe. I wondered where it came from. Did it have a beginning? I remembered lying in bed at night trying to think of a beginningless universe. Every event would be preceded by another event, back and back into the past, with no stopping point—or, more accurately, no starting point! An infinite past, with no beginning! My mind reeled at the prospect. It just seemed inconceivable to me. There must have been a beginning at some point, I thought, in order for everything to get started.

Little did I suspect that for centuries—millennia, really—men had grappled with the idea of an infinite past and the question of whether there was a beginning of the universe. Ancient Greek philosophers believed that matter was necessary and uncreated and therefore eternal. God may be responsible for introducing order into the cosmos, but He did not create the universe itself.

This Greek view was in contrast to even more ancient Jewish thought about the subject. Hebrew writers held that the universe has not always existed but was created by God at some point in the past. As the first verse of the Hebrew holy scriptures states: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).

Eventually these two competing traditions began to interact. There arose within Western philosophy an ongoing debate that lasted for well over a thousand years about whether or not the universe had a beginning. This debate played itself out among Jews and Muslims as well as Christians, both Catholic and Protestant. It finally sputtered to something of an inconclusive end in the thought of the great eighteenth-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant. He held, ironically, that there are rationally compelling arguments for both sides, thereby exposing the bankruptcy of reason itself!

I first became aware of this debate only after graduating from university. Wanting to come to terms with this question, I decided upon completion of my Master’s degree work in philosophy to find someone who would be willing to supervise a doctoral thesis on this question. The person who stood out above all others was Prof. John Hick at the University of Birmingham. We did come to Birmingham, and I did write on the cosmological argument under Prof. Hick’s direction, and eventually three books flowed out of that doctoral thesis. I was able to explore the historical roots of the argument, as well as deepen and advance the analysis of the argument. I also discovered quite amazing connections to contemporary astronomy and cosmology.

Because of its historic roots in medieval Islamic theology, I christened the argument “the kalam cosmological argument” (“kalam” is the Arabic word for medieval theology). Today this argument, largely forgotten since the time of Kant, is once again back at center stage. The Cambridge Companion to Atheism (2007) reports, “A count of the articles in the philosophy journals shows that more articles have been published about . . . the Kalam argument than have been published about any other . . . contemporary formulation of an argument for God’s existence. . . . theists and atheists alike ‘cannot leave [the] Kalam argument alone’” (p. 183).

What is the argument which has stirred such interest? Let’s allow one of the greatest medieval protagonists in this debate to speak for himself. Al-Ghazali was a twelfth-century Muslim theologian from Persia, or modern-day Iran. He was concerned that Muslim philosophers of his day were being influenced by ancient Greek philosophy to deny God’s creation of the universe. After thoroughly studying the teachings of these philosophers, Ghazali wrote a withering critique of their views entitled The Incoherence of the Philosophers. In this fascinating book, he argues that the idea of a beginningless universe is absurd. The universe must have a beginning, and since nothing begins to exist without a cause, there must be a transcendent Creator of the universe.

Ghazali formulates his argument very simply: “Every being which begins has a cause for its beginning; now the world is a being which begins; therefore, it possesses a cause for its beginning.”

Ghazali’s reasoning involves three simple steps:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its beginning.

2. The universe began to exist.

3. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its beginning.

Let’s look at each step of this argument.

Premise 1

Notice that Ghazali does not need a premise so strong as (1) in order for his argument to succeed. The first premise can be more modestly stated.

1'. If the universe began to exist, then the universe has a cause of its beginning.

This more modest version of the first premise will enable us to avoid distractions about whether subatomic particles which are the result of quantum decay processes come into being without a cause. This alleged exception to (1) is irrelevant to (1'). For the universe comprises all contiguous spacetime reality. Therefore, for the whole universe to come into being without a cause is to come into being from nothing, which is absurd. In quantum decay events, the particles do not come into being from nothing. As Christopher Isham, Britain’s premier quantum cosmologist, cautions,

Care is needed when using the word ‘creation’ in a physical context. One familiar example is the creation of elementary particles in an accelerator. However, what occurs in this situation is the conversion of one type of matter into another, with the total amount of energy being preserved in the process.

Thus, this alleged exception to (1) is not an exception to (1').

Let me give three reasons in support of premise (1'):

1. Something cannot come from nothing. To claim that something can come into being from nothing is worse than magic. When a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat, at least you’ve got the magician, not to mention the hat! But if you deny premise (1'), you’ve got to think that the whole universe just appeared at some point in the past for no reason whatsoever. But nobody sincerely believes that things, say, a horse or an Eskimo village, can just pop into being without a cause.

2. If something can come into being from nothing, then it becomes inexplicable why just anything or everything doesn’t come into being from nothing. Think about it: why don’t bicycles and Beethoven and root beer just pop into being from nothing? Why is it only universes that can come into being from nothing? What makes nothingness so discriminatory? There can’t be anything about nothingness that favors universes, for nothingness doesn’t have any properties. Nor can anything constrain nothingness, for there isn’t anything to be constrained!

3. Common experience and scientific evidence confirm the truth of premise 1'. The science of cosmogeny is based on the assumption that there are causal conditions for the origin of the universe. So it’s hard to understand how anyone committed to modern science could deny that (1') is more plausibly true than false.

So I think that the first premise of the kalam cosmological argument is surely true."