Although most Christians happily accept this characteristic as a necessary part of their deity's personality as stipulated by dogma, few believers actually examine the claim of exhaustive knowledge to discover the problems this notion leads to.

For an omniscient being, knowledge cannot be said to be a product of reason, as in the case of man. Reason, which is man's only means of knowledge, presupposes non-omniscience. The very task of reason is to proceed from previously validated knowledge to evaluate new knowledge claims according to its congruity with that previously validated knowledge, with the intention of validating new knowledge as a result. A being said to be omniscient by nature does not have to go through this drawn-out process as there would never be any new knowledge for it to acquire or validate; it simply knows because it already knows. No means or method of knowledge is at all applicable in the case of an omniscient being.

For instance, in 1988, while riding home from work one afternoon I was in a brutal bicycle accident. I have knowledge of this experience because I was involved in it and experienced it firsthand. My friends and family members learned of the accident when I told them about it. The question for the theist is, how does God know about it (assuming God does know about it)? Did God author the accident and therefore know this knowledge? If God can be said to have this knowledge by authorship of the event, then this implies some kind of method of knowledge acquisition, for knowledge is now thought to be the product of some creative process. But wouldn't this mean that God did not have this knowledge prior to its authorship?

The theist may argue that prior to the authorship of this knowledge, it simply did not exist. Given the prior descriptions of God as an omniscient being, such a position indeed seems quite arbitrary, because

1. this implies that at one point God did not have knowledge of his event (which amounts to non-omniscience), and
2. arguing that prior to the authorship of the knowledge of the event of my accident the knowledge did not exist evades the fact that new knowledge arises as a result of the facts of reality, rather than the other way around. (I.e., the theist commits himself to a logical reversal.)

Did God learn of my accident the day it happened? If so, then this implies a means of knowledge, which presupposes a lack of knowledge at some point prior to the event in question. Hence, this would mean that God is not omniscient.

Did God have knowledge of my accident since the foundations of the world were laid? This position implies that there was a point at which God came into this knowledge - at the time of the creation of the world. But religionists argue that the world is not eternal, so that means that the creation of the world had to have a beginning at some point in time during God's career as creator, and therefore this knowledge would not be eternally visited to God, but must have had a starting point, too. This again implies non-omniscience prior to the foundations of the world. This position therefore implies that somehow God came into knowledge that at a prior point he did not have. How did he come into this knowledge? By what method? Blank out.

Quite simply, the theist cannot have his cake and eat it, too. If God is omniscient, which necessarily means knowledge without method (since a method of knowledge presupposes non-omniscience), then the knowledge God has can only be characterized as unearned, since his knowledge is not the result of any productive means of effort, but simply a spontaneous phenomenon. The knowledge God has can only be said to be earned knowledge if it is the result of some kind of productive effort (such as perception, reasoning, research, etc.). However, such productive effort would presuppose that the knowledge resulting from that productive effort was not previously known, which means: productive effort in pursuit of knowledge presupposes non-omniscience.

If the knowledge God has can be said to be rightfully belonging to him because God creates knowledge, then this suggests that God at one time did not have the knowledge that later he created it. This again calls the claim of God's omniscience into question. Knowledge for man is always the product of some kind of mental effort. But for God, claims the religionist, knowledge is, as stated above, in effect a spontaneous phenomenon.

This notion is clearly at odds with knowledge as man knows it, and the theologians' attempts to resolve this problem have only increased their payload of more problems rather than resolve any. Any resistance to grasping this distinction should be noted by the critic, for it is nothing short of an admission on the theist's part of his own pursuit of the unearned. As David King states,

If the theist argues that God is the creator of the knowledge of my accident by arguing that he is the author of the fact that I had an accident, then the theist openly proclaims his advocacy of the primacy of consciousness view of reality (this should hardly come as a surprise). Such a view would entail the suppression of the laws of nature - e.g., the law of identity and the law of causality - in favor of interjecting the notion of a ruling consciousness capable of overriding these laws and directing the course of reality by its whims.

Many religionists also attempt to assert that their God is logical. This position is also in dire contradiction to the notion that God is an omniscient being. Logic is a cognitive process of non-contradictory identification. As such, it is a means of identifying the facts of reality that is required only by beings who need to identify reality. Which means, logic is required only by those beings who do not already possess knowledge of reality. This necessarily infers that logic presupposes non-omniscience. Hence, logic is completely superfluous in the case of an allegedly omniscient being, such as the Christian's God. Since the Christian God is said to be omniscient, he requires no means of validating knowledge claims, he would know already! The same objection can be raised when the theist attempts to link his claims of an omniscient God to the concepts of rationality and objectivity, which, as dealing with the means of validating knowledge, these concepts necessarily presuppose non-omniscience. Thus, it is difficult to see how the theologian can attach the laws of logic to his god-belief claims, when problems like these arise at the outset of such claims.

Given these basic points, the theist positing an omniscient being must in the end confess his desire for unearned knowledge. For man, knowledge is not gained without some effort of discovery, reasoning and validation. An omniscient being, however, has no need for these. An omniscient being would require no method of acquiring or validating knowledge as these presuppose non-omniscience and fallibility. What the theist most likely secretly desires is a source of ready knowledge that he can claim at his disposal (through such notions as 'revelation', 'faith', etc.) that bypasses all method of reasoning. If the mystic can claim access to such a source of knowledge, and this claim is accepted, those who accept such a claim grant

to the mystic unearned authority - i.e., authority without substantiation of productive effort. This pursuit of unearned authority is evident in the case of the spokesmen for orthodox religious philosophy, for they assert as with authority their god-belief claims as if they were knowledge of certainty. Yet when pressured on matters they must admit that the roots of their knowledge - their 'omniscient god', the alleged source of their knowledge - is incomprehensible - which means, beyond their understanding. Thus, with this admission, the theist surrenders all potential authority on matters of reason and truth. Further, positing the notion of omniscience only broadcasts the religionist's own pursuit of the unearned, in this case, of unearned knowledge.

What purpose would exhaustive knowledge of the universe serve any living being? Why would any being require such knowledge? Would a being necessarily just have exhaustive knowledge about the universe if it did not need it for any specific reason, or to fulfill any specific purpose? Without a purpose to fulfill, it seems such exhaustive knowledge of the universe would be superfluous at best, even cumbersome.

For man, knowledge undeniably serves a variety of purposes, all of which can be reduced to one general overall purpose: to deal with the problems of his existence. Whether it is learning how to eat a bowl of cereal, learning where the bowl in the cupboard for the cereal is, learning what ingredients are in that cereal, the process required to manufacture that cereal, the means of distributing that cereal to consumers who purchase it, or learning how to run the business that manufactures that cereal, all these things point to a single fundamental issue: man's mortal existence.

God, however, is said to be immortal, eternal, everlasting. Certainly, such a being does not face the same problems of existence that man does. Indeed, such an entity could not face any problems (and even if it did, God is also claimed to be omnipotent, so it would face no problem that it could not overcome). Therefore, God requiring any knowledge at all - either limited knowledge that is the result of a productive process of reasoning, or unlimited, exhaustive knowledge of the universe that requires no method - could not be for the purpose of dealing with the problems of its existence, since it is a given (by reference to its other attributes - immortality and omnipotence) that God will overcome all problems, if in fact it could be said that God faces any problems. An immortal being would not need knowledge to solve problems because it could not be said to face problems.

Thus the question of why God would require omniscience remains unanswered.

If omniscience is exhaustive knowledge of all existence, what purpose precisely could the vast majority of this knowledge possibly serve? Take for example a simple stone you find in a field. Let's say it weighs roughly half an ounce. An omniscient being would know this. Additionally, an omniscient being would know how many grams this stone would weigh. This omniscient being would also know how much this stone weighs according to any imaginary weight scale that any human, past, present or future might figure on inventing. It could weigh 5.713 Basslestons, for all we know, where 'Bassleston' is a unit of measure of which we have no knowledge at this time. But of course, we would also know that these weight scales presuppose an earthly standard. The average human being has no idea what a stone weighing roughly half an ounce on earth would weigh on Mars, or on Venus, or on the sun. But an omniscient being would know these facts as well. Such knowledge would be child's play for this being. In fact, all knowledge would be child's play to an omniscient being.

Let's say this stone appears gray with red streaks; an omniscient being would know this as well. But of course, this color evaluation presupposes yet again an earthly standard as well as a human optical standard. But an omniscient being would know what color the same stone would look like according to other standards, whether on this planet or on another, whether human or non-human, whether colorblind or color perfect. All possible and imaginable variations would be known, as well as any variations outside our imagination or scope of supposed possibility. Such knowledge is, again, child's play for an omniscient being.

But these two considerations, weight and appearance, are concerned with only two of the many properties of the stone's identity. What about the makeup of the stone? What elements comprise the stone? As far as our knowledge goes, we know that a stone such as the one I am writing consists of literally billions of atoms, atoms comprising elemental molecules, which together make up the stone. An omniscient being would know this. An omniscient being would know in detail every atom making up that stone; it would know the precise location and position of each proton, neutron, quark and any other subatomic particle composing the stone at every instant, past, present and future.

In addition to all this knowledge (which would fill volumes for man), an omniscient being would know the elemental history of every - each and every - atom within that stone. Let's say there are just one billion atoms in the make up of the stone (and to be accurate, there are probably several times a billion squared making up the stone). An omniscient being would know about every particular atom at present. That includes how many atoms, what kind of atoms they are, how many molecules those atoms make up within that stone, the physical distance from each other at which they reside in that stone, the potential molecules those atoms would make if they were combined together under whatever conditions they may (and this omniscient being would know the extent of this potential as well), etc.

In addition to this, this omniscient being would also know the specific history of every one of these billions and billions of atoms from its time of creation. That would include, for every atom making up the stone, the time of its creation, the nature of its identity at its creation (which may have changed since its creation), the number of transformations it may or may not have experienced as an atom - or, the number of transformations it could have experienced had things happened just a bit differently than it had. An omniscient being would also know the relationship to any atom with which each atom of this stone came into contact in the past. This omniscient being would know where precisely in the earth it initially deposited each atom and where that spot is exactly today, as well as where it will be in the future. It would also know where each atom of that stone will be in the next 100 years, in the next 500 years, 1000 years, one million years, etc. All such knowledge would have no limit whatsoever, for an omniscient being.

Multiply this situation with every stone you find in every field in every county, every state, every nation, every continent, even every planet and solar system in existence now, or in the past or in the future, and you have quite a volume of potential knowledge. Multiply this situation beyond mere stones or grains of sand; imagine every molecule of water, every molecule of oxygen, every molecule of every kind of gas, plastic, of every kind of metal, of oil, of carbon, of any kind of organic matter, etc., ad nauseum.

While the Christian positing an omniscient God might reply that these incredible notions only attest to the glory and magnitude of God (something no man can verify, only assert without reference to the facts of reality), a rational man would ask, "What purpose does all this supposed knowledge serve this allegedly immortal being?" To a rational man, such surplus of knowledge indeed seems quite superfluous to the point of perverse wastefulness. Why would any being need to know all these facts about all these items? Why would it be profitable for any cause or goal to know about every atom that makes up my shower curtain, for instance, and the shower curtain I had up in place prior to the one I have up now, and every shower curtain that ever existed anywhere on earth, and any shower curtain that will ever exist in the future, and any shower curtain any human being, past, present or future, can imagine or conceive? What is the advantage of such knowledge? What possible purpose could this serve on behalf of an omnipotent, immortal being that can know no threat, fear or loss to itself?

But let's say, using Rand's example, that we can construct a robot that can be aware of its own existence, but we make this robot to be indestructible, like the Christian's God. No force can threaten this robot; it stands to lose nothing because it is indestructible, immortal, everlasting, eternal, yet it is aware of its own existence, like the Christian's God. Can such a being know value now? The Objectivist position is quite simply, No, it cannot.

Ironically, the Christian posits an immortal being which is also omniscient. But it is precisely because this being is immortal that it cannot know values. Christians will likely protest this, failing to see the incoherence of their own statements. This is where Objectivist philosophy comes in to bring some clarity into the matter. Christians, in their detestable habit of failing to define their terms (a habit they picked up from the primitives who wrote the Bible, no doubt), often treat the concept 'value' as if it were a primary. They often treat the concept 'purpose' with the same carelessness as well.

However, until these terms are objectively defined and their proper relationship is understood, they are in effect meaningless terms which can be brandished more for their emotional effect than for their objective relevance. It is most probably the case that the average Christian has not given a lot of thought to the concept 'value', how it relates to the concept 'purpose', or why these concepts cannot be integrated with the notion of an immortal being. But until the theist can present a valid case for ascribing value and purpose to their notion of an immortal being which can know no loss, no threat or privation, the Objectivist view of ethics stands as perhaps the strongest case against the existence of such a being in this respect.

Now that we can safely determine that God - if defined as an omnipotent, immortal, everlasting being - would have no need of its own for exhaustive knowledge, we now turn to the only other reason left for positing omniscience as a characteristic of God: a need outside of God. What need outside of God could there be for God to have omniscience? Any answer to this question would impose a circularity of vicious proportions, since God is said to be the creator of anything that is outside himself; he would be said to have created his own need, but would he have needed to create this need? Furthermore, if anything that is outside of God, either the totality of everything outside him proper - such as the universe, or whatever else besides the universe God is said to have created - or any part of that totality - can be said to require that God be omniscient, then the purpose of God's omniscience is then dependent upon something outside him.

What could this purpose be, then, if it is something outside God? Could the universe require an omniscient God? On what basis could one make such an argument? For its mere existence? Well, we already should know that existence exists, and that existence exists independently of any form or act of consciousness. What would such an argument hold that the universe could gain from the omniscience of God? The universe itself is not a living being, so it cannot know value; 'value' according to objective theory of ethics only applies to living beings capable of rationality which face the alternative of non-existence. Neither God nor the universe fits this criterion. Therefore, any argument that concludes that the universe requires that God be omniscient, and that is the purpose that God has for being omniscient, will fail.

But man is a living being, and he can know value. Indeed, value is what makes his life possible to begin with. Can it be for man's sake that the priests and theologians assert that God is an omniscient being? Could man himself be the purpose of God's omniscience? While most Christians may have a hard time admitting to this, it appears to be the only plausible answer to the riddle that the theologians and priests have set up for themselves regarding an omniscient deity.

Thus by considering these points, we know that God himself would have no need for all the superfluous knowledge that omniscience would bring, for God is said to be immortal and indestructible. Such a being would have no need for such knowledge. Therefore, any purpose for God's omniscience must be outside God, if indeed there could be said to be a purpose for God to be omniscient. We also recognize that the universe itself could find no advantage in the omniscience of God, so the universe as the recipient of the benefits of God's omniscience is incoherent. The same would be the case for inanimate objects in the universe. A planet or asteroid, for instance, has nothing to lose - such entities cannot know value, therefore these things cannot be the purpose of God's alleged exhaustive knowledge.

Hence, we must turn our attention to man himself as the purpose of God's omniscience, for in fact it is from men to begin with that all claims of god-belief originate (the stars do not align in the form of letters and attest to the existence of God or gods by spelling out their names). But what could man need that would be fulfilled by an omniscient God? Man himself cannot tap into the mind of an alleged being which is said to be omniscient, so there is no direct benefit for man in having his God be omniscient.

What would the priests have to gain from attributing the notion of omniscience to the deity that their laity have accepted as their God? What would the notion of omniscience lend to that deity that no other notion could achieve? What advantage would the priests have by describing their God as an omniscient being? Quite simply, their advantage would be one of tremendous influence over the individuals under their care. And this influence is precisely what the priests seek to begin with.

How would supposing an omniscient deity prove effective in enlarging the influence of a priesthood? Quite simply, actually. An omniscient God is more than just a God which would know everything. Such a God would know everything about each believer, which means He would be all-seeing. Belief in an all-knowing, all-seeing God would be far more frightening than belief in a God of limited knowledge and vision into the lives of His believers. Indeed, the fear factor of religion is in fact substantially intensified by the notion that God is all-knowing and all-seeing. The priests who invented the god-belief of the Judeo-Christian tradition knew very well what they were doing, and crafted their God with the maximum capacity to wage terror in the minds of believers and render the maximum obedience to the priesthood.

Consider the psychological ramifications of belief in an omniscient God. An individual accepting belief in such a being would never be able to know privacy in the most private haven of his existence: his own mind. While the priest himself may not claim omniscient privilege to the minds of his flock, the priest is ever ready to remind the believer of the all-seeing eye of their voyeuristic God. There is possibly no greater paralyzing psychological fear than belief in a being which can know one's own private thoughts, feelings, impulses and motivations. The priests who invented and developed prototypical god-beliefs knew well to include this notion of omniscience as a means of compulsion, as a tool of enslavement, as a force ensuring obedience to the priests own whims.

Recognition of this fact should be no secret to either believers or critics of Christianity. Indeed, some spokesmen for the religion are quite open about these issues. For instance, The New Unger's Bible Dictionary [rev. 1988] states that God's "possession [of omniscience] is incomprehensible to us, and yet it is necessary to our faith in the perfection of God's sovereignty" [s.v. omniscience]. Such admissions as this clearly affirm the conclusion that the purpose of positing God as an omniscient being lies outside God and is centered on man. Authorities of Christianity have also admitted that, like the other characteristics attributed to God, omniscience "is well calculated to fill [believers] with profound reverence. It should alarm sinners…" [Ibid.]. (It should be noted that Christians often supplant the term "fear" with the more euphemistic "reverence".)

The well-known freethought author George H. Smith poignantly identifies the power of psychological sanctions employed famously by priests and religious leaders in his book Atheism: The Case Against God:

And effective they have been indeed! So effective that for the nearly 2000-year history of Christianity, morality has been equated to unquestioning belief, humility, selflessness, obedience and servitude, self-inflicted ignorance ("judge not"), herd mentality, and, most importantly, the ethics of self-sacrifice. These 'virtues' (or more accurately, 'anti-virtues') have been the perennial hallmarks of religious morality, and Christianity is perhaps their most perverse champion.

The intended effects of a psychological sanction, "if successful," as Smith points out, are no less than the complete disablement of the believer's mind. Not only does an effective (i.e., successful in the context of Smith's point) priesthood have nothing to fear from a flock of mentally disabled followers, it stands to gain precisely the benefits it seeks to gain without putting forth the effort they loathe so much: an income! For the priest, the cycle of the unearned is complete: from claiming unearned knowledge to pursue unearned wealth and influence. The means of choice is the only means that could avail itself to those seeking the unearned: deceit, dishonesty and the threat of force. The history of the church stands as a monument to the priest's desire for the unearned.

In Ecclesiastes 3:14, the author states quite explicitly his belief that one of God's primary tasks in relation to men has been to make sure they fear Him: "I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him." Such a belief, that any God whose primary interests include making his creations fear him, bespeaks a petty-minded, hostile and brutish view of life. But what should be clear by such verses is the emphasis their authors put in their descriptions of their object of worship. Quite apparently, these authors took great delight in peddling fear.

Ecclesiastes 5:7 belittles man's capacity to enjoy the use of his own mind in relation to the fear that should limit or keep this capacity in check: "For in the multitude of dreams and many words there are also divers vanities: but fear thou God." Would the fact that another individual indulge his mind in dreams, be they frivolous or intellectually productive, threaten the priests to such a degree that they would utter categorical injunctions of fear and threats in the manner they did? Obviously the priests had plenty to lose from the freedom of thought among their followers, and plenty to gain through such fear-mongering. Why would these priests not have been willing to go out and earn what they wanted in the first place?

Ecclesiastes 8:12 shows how the priests twisted their fear-mongering into something that their gullible followers should actually value and cling to: "Though a sinner do evil an hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before him." Believers were taught that prosperity and a benevolent life were the reward for their fear of God. Certainly such verses were needed to accomplish the priest's task, for believers observing the success of non-believers would have to have been warned from drawing dissenting conclusions about their god-belief.

Ecclesiastes 12:13 offers the final summary of the priest's teachings: "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man."

So long as the believer surrenders his mind to the preacher, the preacher has this authority to hold over the believer's head, and nothing will impede the perpetuation of the psychological sanctions notions like omniscience make possible.

Is it any wonder why the Bible, for instance, contains no prohibitions against slavery? Is it any wonder that the Bible never develops a theory of individual rights in any way, shape or form? Is it any wonder why the Bible does not prohibit racism? Is it any wonder why the doctrines of the Bible are vehemently postured against the integrity of man's self-esteem, attacking him for daring to have pride in himself, for valuing his livelihood on earth, for esteeming those values that make his rational life possible in the first place? Is it any wonder that the Bible contains no declaration of independence, proclaiming the right of every individual to his life, his liberty and his pursuit of happiness? A philosophy built on the notion of a voyeuristic 'omniscient' deity is hardly the recipe for a healthy, happy and productive life of reason. As the author of the epistle to the Romans remarked, "Be not highminded, but fear" [11:20].

This idea is repeated in other passages from Proverbs:

Some proverbs explicitly command men to have fear:

It's a wonder how some Christians can believe the absurd claim that the roots of a constitutional republic find their source in a primitive text advocating fear, loyalty to a king and arbitrary rigidity!

The priestly authors saw to it that believers be continually reminded of the claim that an omniscient God "sees all" - that God is always watching, that the believer can never escape God's judging eye. In all cases, the claim that God was omniscient is always there to remind the believer that God is listening to the believer's thoughts. No escape from the voyeuristic God is possible, according to the priest. This strategy is highly effective in assuring the effectiveness of psychological sanctions.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus repeats several times that God's voyeuristic attention is constantly trained on the thoughts and actions of the believer. Thus God's omniscient eye is used to bolster to the psychological sanctions established through the advocacy of fear in prior verses.

Other New Testament passages bolster the voyeurism of God:

Verses as those above have been used by Christian leaders as weapons of mind control ever since they were first set down on paper.

But wouldn't a doctrine intending to invoke fear be incomplete if it were not accompanied also by some kind of assurance that prevents undermining that fear? That is a good question! Indeed, we find in the New Testament many 'scriptures' that foster suspicion of outside influence once the psychological sanctions pointed out above have been accepted and have begun to take affect. The Bible is full of warnings against any critical voice emanating from outside the church. By identifying them, we recognize that the priestly elites who authored the Bible invented a very handy tool to protect their followers from scrutiny: presume all dissension as inherently false! Observe the following warnings from New Testament authors:

Such verses are conveniently ambiguous and therefore malleably applicable in adept hands, as these could clearly come in handy for any Jim Jones or David Koresh seeking to build his own flock of gullible sycophants who take his every word as the solemn truth. Ascribing to them the putative credibility that many people unquestioningly assume comes with antiquity only makes them all the more effective.

The priests also saw to it to protect their fear-causing 'wisdom' from scrutiny by deliberately divorcing it from this world. This effectively puts the content of that which is claimed beyond any human access, and thus confirmation of such claims can only come as a result of simply believing on faith, i.e., through gullibility. To question the validity of the verses or their meaning is to question the authority of 'scripture', of the church or of the priest(s), and invite damnation on one's own soul. If a believer complains that he does not understand (often because he detects an error), he is exhorted "trust in the Lord with all [his] heart; and lean not unto [his] understanding" (Proverbs 3:5). As far as the priest is concerned, one of the benefits of the submissiveness and gullibility advocated in the Bible is that he need not brandish whips or chains in order to cultivate his slaves. To the extent that believers accept these doctrines, or dogmas, they surrender themselves before the priesthood as for slaughter. Bible authors did not choose the metaphor 'sheep' for its cuddliness.

Some verses attributed to the Apostle Paul serve as ample evidence of this maneuver:

As Dennis McKinsey notes:

In many ways, the mystic's notion of omniscience is fundamentally flawed. In addition to the many problems associated with this notion that other critics of religion have pointed out, the notion of omniscience attempts to posit knowledge without method as well as knowledge devoid of any purpose whatsoever. As such, the notion omniscience represents the mystic's desire for the unearned as well as his wish to escape the constraining facts of reality.

Quite simply, since the notion of omniscience has nothing to do with the concept knowledge in any rational sense, the mystic must find a term other than knowledge as any part of the definition of omniscience. Since all legitimate knowledge known to man is the product of rational effort, there is no such thing as automatic knowledge, or knowledge without method. This is precisely what the mystic is attempting to posit as an attribute of his alleged deity, yet such a notion has no correspondence whatsoever to the facts of reality. Therefore, the notion 'omniscience' does not qualify as a legitimate concept. Indeed, it stands as an anti-concept asserted to substitute and obliterate genuinely rational concepts for knowledge.

We recognize, given the fact that exhaustive knowledge of the universe could suit no purpose of any immortal being which can know no threat or loss, that the real purpose for ascribing the notion omniscience to a deity lies in the hands of the priests who originate the ascription in the first place. As a tool to bolster church authority through positing a voyeuristic God capable of 'seeing' every act and thought of the believer, the priests and theologians have formulated the ultimate device for the psychological invasion of privacy.

We also see, by the Bible's own repeated admissions, that fear is to be considered a virtue according to this worldview, that men indeed are commanded to have fear, that this fear holds moral primacy over all other emotions one can expect to experience in life. How apologists today can argue that the Christian worldview, a worldview built on the fear of threats, is the only worldview that can account for reason, morality and science (!) is a genuine distortion of the crudest sort.

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[1] Attempts to define the term 'omniscience' generally include the presumption that knowledge can be quantified without regard to its hierarchical nature. Since most philosophy, both modern and primitive, fails to some degree to recognize explicitly the fact that knowledge is hierarchical in nature (primitive philosophies, such as religion, for instance, in fact implicitly deny this fact by asserting such notions as 'revelation' and 'faith' in their implied epistemological schemes), the tendency to treat all knowledge claims (propositions or statements of facts) as inter-equivalent primaries, is very high. It is only through this kind of reckless disregard for the objective nature of knowledge that makes mystical notions of knowledge possible. In addition to this ignorance, the fact that there are no instances of 'exhaustive' or 'infinite knowledge' in reality is the reason why theologians encounter such difficulty in finding a suitable and coherent definition for their pet term. Quite simply, since the term 'omniscience' integrates no existents as its units in the formation of the idea, it fails to qualify as a legitimate concept. The problems discussed in this paper are a direct result of this recklessness. This disregard for the facts of reality also suggests why we see such variance among the solutions to the problems associated with the notion omniscience which philosophers and theologians alike have suggested and developed for centuries of religious inquiry.

Some biblical passages that declare God's omniscience include: Psalms 33:13-15, 139:11-12, 147:5; Proverbs 15:3; Isaiah 40:14, 46:10; Acts 15:18; Hebrews 4:13 and I John 3:20.

[2] For instance, see Michael Martin's Atheism: A Philosophical Justification [Temple University Press, 1990], chapter 12 (pp. 286-316). Martin notes in his conclusion on the matter of the incoherence of divine attributes:

Other critics who have pointed out the incoherence of divine attributes include Douglas Krueger [What is Atheism? A Short Introduction, Prometheus Books, 1998 - see particularly pp. 165-172]; George H. Smith [Atheism: The Case Against God, Prometheus Books, 1979 - see particularly pp. 73-76].

[3] Genesis 1:26-27 state:

According to exactly what image did God create man? God is said to be immaterial, so it cannot be the form of man's body by which God reflected his own image in creating man. And, according to Genesis, man was created without knowledge of good and evil - this had to be learned. Therefore, one cannot say that man was created after God's moral image (however, reading through much of the Old Testament's tales of war, rape and pillage, this would explain a lot). Nor can one say that man was created after God's epistemic image (i.e., after the way that God knows things), for man is not omniscient and must employ reasoning in order to learn and validate new knowledge. Nor can one argue that man was created after God's 'living' image, for he is not immortal like God. (Arguments that suggest that the fall of man resulted in his mortality quickly disintegrate into post hoc interpolation.) However, the whole notion of God having an image is moot in any case, since God is said to be infinite, which means in effect that God has no identity, for whatever identity one attempts to ascribe to God, God is more than that identity. Man, on the other hand, does have a specific identity and nature, so any such comparison as made in primitive 'holy books' is baseless.

[4] The assertion that God is omniscient is not stipulated by any of the traditional arguments for the existence of God or gods (which have been shown repeatedly to fail anyway). Even if the traditional arguments for God's existence, such as the cosmological, 'design' or ontological arguments, were said to be sound, neither of those arguments show that God must have exhaustive knowledge of the universe. That God is omniscient is usually just assumed for the sake of complicity with primitive 'holy' books that make originated the assertion. This is true even in the case of any minor arguments for the existence of God (which have also been shown repeatedly to fail).

[6] David King, Guide To Objectivism. The entirety of this text can be found at the following URL:

[7] Furthermore, arguing that God created the laws of nature, which some theists do in order to get around these problems, is absurd on the face of it and only commits the theist to yet more insuperable problems. If God is said to have created anything, then that necessarily presents a causal task. However, if one argues that God created the law of causality, one assumes causality in order to explain causality. The same problem arises with the law of identity: if God is said to have created the law of identity, the law is already assumed by positing God. Any thing that exists necessarily has an identity. The theist taking the position that God 'authored' the laws of nature must outright reject the laws of nature in order to posit a need to explain them; i.e., he will have to deny the fact that A is A. But A is A. And corollary to this fact is the fact that if A should exist, it must be A. Any thing that exists or is said to exist has by virtue of its existence a nature, an identity. It is what it is. Likewise, causality is identity applied to action. Any action by God, be it creation, revelation or damnation, presupposes both identity and causality. The theist asserting the notion that God escapes these facts of reality has no alternative but to nakedly embrace irrationality. Each instance where the theist posits God to explain the facts of reality entails a stolen concept. The theist believes he can get away with this by open rejection of reality as well as the hierarchical nature of knowledge. In the end, however, he just paints himself into corners that he cannot escape.

[8] Ayn Rand wrote in Atlas Shrugged (as part of "John Galt's Speech," pp. 930-931):

See also Rand, "The Objectivist Ethics," The Virtue of Selfishness; Leonard Peikoff, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, pp. 207-220. Also, see my upcoming article, An Immortal God Cannot Value for more details regarding the incoherence of attributing moral value, purpose and love to an immortal being, such as God.

[10] Religionists may object to this identification by arguing that the idea of God's omniscience comes from the Bible, which they say is the word of God, which means they argue that the idea of God's omniscience comes directly from God. However, this strategy presupposes the belief that God's existence is fact, and that that God is indeed the God which authored the Bible. Such claims have continually failed to be established. Thus, such objections can only beg the question.

[11] An exciting article currently under construction in the Anton Thorn workshop identifies precisely how the Bible's failure to distinguish between knowledge and emotion results in a confusion of the two, with the hazardous results being an epistemology of subjectivity and whim-worship.

[12] The notion that man has a "God-shaped void in his heart" is quite striking, especially when apologists maintain that God has no shape or form, that God transcends all understanding of the physical. However, it comes as no surprise that theists of any weave would neglect the need for coherence and integrity in their philosophical doctrines and statements.

[13] It should be noted while reading these passages that fear is taken as a primary, not as a consequence to prior facts. In objective philosophy, we recognize that emotions are not experienced without cause, as the biblical authors seemed to think. Emotions lie outside man's immediate control; they are a product of new knowledge measured against his values. The primitive philosophers who authored the Bible would have done well to discover the objective nature of emotions, that they are not causally irreducible and that they serve as a poor basis for epistemology.

[14] James 2:10-11 states: "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, also said, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou are become a transgressor of the law." This attitude seems to contrast to a great degree with that of Jesus', whose main concern relative to James' was seemingly that believers just have faith and conduct themselves with meekness, etc. By the time the author of James wrote, the new religion had taken on more severe standards of obedience, as the doctrines were clearly evolving.

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