I am thinking of writing a work of apologetics. So this is my first sentence. I want to know if you find it to be clear. I will have to do some research into arguments before I continue.
It sounds a bit like a cheap rip off of a bible - works on religious arguments generally start without stating the forgone conclusion ... also its proof in the singular and you need to work on the correct use of 'of' 'to' 'for' etc God, created the world to show His love and glory, and left in the heavens and earth signs and proof that He exists. He has made the conscience of man witness to His law, according to which the world will be judged, on the day which He has ordained I can't remember if we've already covered this elsewhere but are you a native English speaker ?
I know that some of the language (that is, the syntax and phrases themselves, myself not speaking of its voice) resembles that of the Bible. I intend to expressly state that, and to cite the Bible. A work called Pilgrim's progress uses a lot of Biblical language. I also have a book that contains whole clauses from the Bible which are not enclosed by quotation marks. In my sentence, however, I did not do that. Thanks for the feedback. I will be more careful to use proper grammar, and I will consider taking a different approach to ordering the content of this work. English is my native language, but I am not an avid reader of literature, and sometimes I take a chance with words when I am not entirely sure of their meaning. As for the word, "for", when I looked it up in the dictionary, I saw that it could be used as a preposition to signify the cause of something, so I used it that way in the sentence I posted in my other thread. Can you recommend an online resource on usage and grammar? I think that would help me avoid mistakes in my writing, not that I am completely ignorant of grammar and usage, but I could use a lot of improvement. Thanks.
The Blue book - see the resources section. Also Eats, shoots and leaves by Lynn Truss Also there's a difference between using biblical language and sounding like you are preaching on a street corner..... plus John Bunyan wrote Pilgrims Progress in 1658, literary style has changed 'a bit' since then
It stopped making sense at "He is". I realize that you might mean "He exists" rather than "He is (missing word)", but neither interpretation flows at all logically to the remaining clauses. It would be much closer to making sense if you allowed it to be two sentences instead of one multi-clause sentence. A rewrite that may or may not mean what you intend it to mean: God, who according to His wisdom has created the world to show His love and glory, has placed in the heavens and in the earth the signs and proofs that He exists. He has placed in the conscience of man the witness of His law, according to which He will judge the world on a day which He has ordained.
Except that this bit "He has placed in the conscience of man the witness of His law," doesn't make sense - you can't use witness like that
I think that he means--and I do NOT mean that his point is remotely clear-- - That men have consciences. - That the conscience is evidence of the existence of god. - Witnesses are evidence. - So the conscience is a witness. Technically, I think that you can use 'witness' in this way--it's similar to the second definition in this link: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/witness But people rarely use it that way.
I made a revision long before you posted this, based on some things that moose pointed out. So I want to post it: Obviously I did not split apart the sentence. And I rejected some other changes. I would like to ask why it is necessary to separate a clause into its own sentence, when it follows another clause regardless. I'm not debating with you. I am just not understanding why it should be done, and what qualifies as a proper long sentence. Does a sentence have to state only one idea, and not progress through multiple ideas, as sentences following sentence would progress through ideas anyway? My reasoning was that, as long as I moved forward, and did not complicate the structure of each clause, I could progress from one idea to another. I figured that a sentence was just words strung together to express multiple propositions, which can be as numerous and diverse as I want, as long as they are arranged in a forward progression. But maybe you think the one idea does not smoothly follow the other, either in logic, space, or time.
You can have a long sentence, but the longer it is the more unweildy it is. Generally a sentence has one subject although you can have more than one clause about that subject My car is red, has leather seats, and a CD player. however if you say My car is red, it has leather seats and a cd player, I also have a bike which is blue, with a chromed exhaust. It's better as two sentences (split after Cd player) because there are two subjects. In your case there are two subjects - the evidence god has placed in the world , and man being witness to his laws - so two sentences are indicated. On your edit you'd still be better changing Is to exists because the sentence that ends proof that he is, feels incomplete as in he is what ? He has left proof that He is a giant moose.
If you have zero interest in commentary on your original example, please indicate that in your original post. No, don't delete the example, but make it clear that you no longer want any commentary whatsoever on that, and that if you receive any commentary, you will be snide in your response. By this logic, why should any book have more than one sentence? Because a sentence is a logical unit of both composition and thought. The added clauses complicate the structure of the sentence. What's wrong with sentences? And you are, IMO, quite incorrect. There is a logical maximum to the length and/or complexity of a sentence. Surely you wouldn't advocate for a sentence that is more than a page, or two pages, or a hundred pages? If not, then you agree that there is a limit. They don't smoothly follow each other, no.
I'm confused about which meaning of subject you are referring to. In one example you equate it with the grammatical subject of the sentence, but in the other example you equate it with more.
The subject of the sentence is that to which the clauses apply in my examples the car and the bike are the subjects. In your sentence the two subjects are a) the signs and proof the God has created, and b) Man's conscience. I'm sorry but I can't make it any clearer than that.
It's a bit vague as far as Apologetics goes, at least not as I understand Apologetics. If this is your intro, it may not be precisely focused enough. You need to tell the reader where you are going, not just the basis of why you believe in that theological message. It's like you've put the cart before the horse.
God, who according to His wisdom has created the world to show His love and glory, has put in the heavens and in the earth the signs and proofs that He is, who also has placed in the conscience of man the witness of His law, according to which He will judge the world on the day which He has ordained. Those two worked because the phrases are near what they're describing. You lose it in the middle though when you sneak in an adjective phrase (who also . . . of His law) because it feels like it should be pointing at "is," but really you're pointing back farther. I think you need to end on a noun there. Keeping this style, here's what I would do: God, who according to His wisdom has created the world to show His love and glory, has put in the heavens and in the earth His signs and proofs, and who also has placed in the conscience of man the witness of His law, according to which He will judge the world on the day which He has ordained. I think the middle holds then. It's a huge idea still, but I think that's what you're aiming for.
What about this? There are some changes which I already made, which I did not put here. But in this version I followed your advice about ending a certain clause with a noun. So is this any better?
Changing from God to Him suggests that you're talking about two different entities. It's a large stumble. Again, a sentence break would fix this.
"proof that its maker is Him" Very unwieldy "Proof that He is it's maker" is what you are looking for
I only put it that way because I thought seven crowns was saying I needed to end with a certain noun/pronoun in order for the next clause to work. Originally I put it the way you put it. I agree. I looked up inverse copula and found that it cannot be used with a pronoun. See: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/be , First definition. Note the other forms given above.
But you need to say it's maker , simply 'he is' on its own does not make sense because it doesn't define what he is ( I'm sure we discussed this yesterday) also in the last paragraph its on the day, not 'in' "God, who according to His wisdom has created the world to show His love and glory, has put in the heavens and in the earth signs and proof that He is it's maker. He also had made the conscience of man witness to His law, according to which He will judge the world, in on the day that He has appointed"
Okay, I like your revision. Originally I had put "He is it's maker" when revising, but I changed it to "it's maker is Him" For some reason the original did not sound as effective the first time I read it. But now that I read it again, it sounds better than "It's maker is Him". And I understand your point about clauses dealing with different subject needing to be separated into their own sentences. But I have seen some sentences that make a lot of different points. I'm not sure if somehow that is justified by some relationship between those points. So these are the sentences now:
I understand this, although I wouldn't choose 'clear' as my first descriptor: it's wordy and a bit clunky. Here, I don't actually know what you're trying to say.
He told man how to behave so that he would go to heaven on the day of judgement - I think. On the wider point this is a lot of agonising about two sentences - I've written about 3000 words into my wip since you started this thread. My advice is to just write , when you've got a first draft you can get a beta reader to help you revise (preferably someone like a priest or biblical scholar who really knows their shit)
No, it means that man knows in his conscience that there is a divine law, because his conscience testifies to it. Maybe this is better:
