Let us now consider a series of objections to the argument just stated. I begin with what I take to be simple misunderstandings, and proceed to what I regard as more subtle and substantive objections. I have included no objections that I have not actually met, and have tried to include all that I have met from anyone even remotely sympathetic with Objectivist principles. Inevitably, some readers will complain that I have included what they regard as clearly trivial, while ignoring the real, the conclusive, the obvious objection, namely.... But that sort of dissatisfaction is inherent in any disputation that is not a direct one-to-one exchange.

  (1) The competence of our minds is an axiom; any attempted disproof is absurd.
  (2) The competence of our minds is an axiom; any attempted proof is superfluous. 
  (3) The competence of our minds is an axiom; hence every mind however produced must be competent. 
  (4) Design does not imply competence. 
  (5) A mind accidentally produced can still be competent (The genetic fallacy). 
  (6) Our thoughts are caused, and therefore connected to reality. 
 
  (7) Natural Selection can produce, without a designer, results that look designed
   (Psychological Darwinism). — In progress
 
  (8) The origins of consciousness are more subtle than this argument allows for.
  (9) An unchosen belief is a contradiction in terms. 
(10) A child comes about as a result of its parents’ having intended it. 
(11) A design explanation of man’s mind fails to explain the designer’s mind. 
 
(12) Power and goodness 
(13) Error and the God of truth 
(14) Omniscience is a subjectivist concept (i.e., the primacy of existence over consciousness).

Is God good? I take it as agreed that moral judgements are assertions about the nature of objective reality, and that man’s mind is a suitable instrument for the examination of moral questions. [01] It is then only a special case of the previous argument to conclude that God’s moral judgements are necessarily correct.

Again, thinking (focusing) is the basic virtue, and refusal to think (blanking out) the basic vice. [02] But an omniscient being focuses on everything. In particular, John Galt lists seven virtues and defines each as “the recognition of the fact that ...” [03] Since an omniscient being recognizes all facts, it follows that God is omni-virtuous.

When people ask whether God is good, they usually mean, “Is he benevolent? In particular, is he benevolent to us? Does he will our good?” Since he designed our minds, our basic tool of survival, we may conclude that he wills us to be rational, to live in the manner appropriate to men. And this, surely, is willing our good. (If there are intermediate designers, then we must say instead that he wills the good of beings who will the good ... of beings who will our good.)

On the other hand, it does not appear that God regards all instances of human pain, fear, failure, or frustration as evils to be eliminated at all costs. But then, as we shall see, neither do Objectivists.

How powerful is God? To begin with, he is the ultimate designer. By the definition of design as given about, the things he has designed have come about as a result of his intending them.

Again, as we have seen, reality and God’s awareness of that reality are identical. If God’s thoughts are dependent on his will, then all reality is dependent on his will and he is omnipotent. Now, someone might object that not every thought is voluntary — that a man who thinks that he has a toothache might prefer to be thinking otherwise. (I reserve comment on the validity of this objection.) But certainly the presumption is that any given thought of an agent of volitional consciousness is under that agent’s control. We therefore have, if not a proof that God is omnipotent, at least rational grounds for expecting him to be very powerful.

Further discussion will be found in connection with Dr. Branden’s discussions of Omnipotence and Contradiction and of the First Cause Argument [see the entries listed in Notes for Revision and Expansion]. Meanwhile, we treat the extent of God’s power as an open question.

It is a common practice to define “God” as “a being of power, wisdom, and goodness,” and clearly the three attributes are closely related. We know that evil is impotent. [04] Therefore, power implies goodness. Power also implies wisdom, as Dr. Branden points out. [05] And as we have just seen, wisdom implies goodness.

(13) Error and the God of Truth

It may be asked: If God has designed our minds to enable us to learn the truth, why is it that our minds sometimes make mistakes?

It will be observed that the Problem of Error is only a special case of the Problem of Evil. Since we shall be discussing the more general problem in connection with Dr. Branden’s analysis of it [see the entries listed in Notes for Revision and Expansion], a brief remark must suffice here.

Miss Rand writes:

Is [man’s] judgement automatically right? No. What causes his judgement to be wrong? The lack of sufficient evidence, or his evasion of the facts, or his inclusion of considerations other than the facts of the case. [06]

An agent that gathers data through its senses, or that gathers data at all, will by its nature sometimes lack some of the evidence relevant to a given question; and a being of volitional consciousness is by its nature free to evade evidence or to include irrelevant considerations. To ask, then, why God has not made man infallible is to ask why he has given man free will and a sensory apparatus.

That men are fallible is a problem only for those who suppose that if the world is dependent on God for its existence, then the world must in some sense be God, that “God” is simply another name for the Universe itself, the sum total of reality, looked at in a religious way. This view is called “pantheism.” Those who take it say that all my thoughts are really God’s thoughts, an aspect of the Divine Mind, and that all my actions are really God’s actions, an aspect of the Divine Activity. This puts them in the position of maintaining either that there is no such thing as a false thought, or a wrong action, or else that the distinction between right and wrong, between true and false, is of no importance on the Divine level. [07] And that, I submit, is a sufficient refutation of pantheism. An adequate account of man’s mind must account both for knowledge and for error. [08] Atheism leaves no room for the possibility of knowledge. Pantheism leaves no room for the possibility of error. Only theism, the belief that we are created by God but distinct from God, accounts for both.

(14) Subjectivism and the Primacy of Consciousness

Objection:
  Your argument has taken a most awkward turn. You claim to be drawing all your conclusions from Objectivist premises, and disputing no part of the Objectivist philosophy except for its atheism, and yet your conclusion strikes at the very heart of Objectivism — the Axiom of Existence.

Objectivism teaches that reality is objective, that it is independent of any consciousness. Theism, as you have pointed out, holds that all of reality is dependent on God’s consciousness. Thus the two are fundamentally incompatible. Let us suppose for the sake of discussion that your argument is valid. Will Objectivists become theists on the strength of it? They had better not. Admitting that Dr. Branden’s refutation of determinism is invalid would be embarrassing, but Objectivism could survive the shock, and alternative arguments for free will could be found. But without the Axiom of Existence, there is no room for Objectivism or for anything purporting to be a rational philosophy.

Reply:
  First, I remark that Dr. Branden’s argument cannot simply be scrapped just because it suddenly turns out to be more embarrassing to keep it than to repudiate it. But more to the point is the question of whether the axiom that reality is objective is compatible with theism.

Admittedly, some Objectivist statements of the axiom put it that reality is independent of any consciousness. [09] On the other hand, some say only that it is independent of human consciousness, [10] and some straddle the fence. [11] Considering that Objectivist writers do not believe in any superhuman consciousness, it is natural that they should not always make it clear whether their statements apply to every mind or only to every human mind. (A man who believes that all crows are black will not always specify whether he is talking about all crows or only about all black crows.) What concerns us is not the exact wording that they may have used but the context of the assertion. Why is it essential to hold that reality is objective? What is the contrary position? What philosophical error is Miss Rand intending to warn us against when she insists that reality is objective? How would she define subjectivism? And here the evidence is abundant.

There are two different forms of subjectivism, distinguished by their answers to the question: whose consciousness creates reality? “Personal” subjectivism ... maintains that each man’s feelings create a private universe for him.... “Social” (or “collective”) subjectivism maintains that it is not the consciousness of individuals, but of groups, that creates reality. [12]

... They are being taught, by implication, that there is no such thing as a firm, objective reality, which man’s mind must learn to perceive correctly; that reality is an indeterminate flux and can be anything the pack wants it to be; that truth and falsehood is determined by majority vote. [13]

Subjectivism is the belief that reality is not a firm absolute, but a fluid, plastic, indeterminate realm which can be altered, in whole or in part, by the consciousness of the perceiver, — i.e., by his feelings, wishes, or whims. It is the doctrine which holds that man — an entity of specific nature, dealing with a universe of a specific nature — can, somehow, live, act, and achieve his goals apart from and/or in contradiction to the facts of reality, i.e., apart from and/or in contradiction to his own nature and the nature of the universe. (This is the “mixed,” moderate, or middle-of-the-road version of subjectivism. Pure or “extreme” subjectivism does not recognize the concept of identity, i.e., the fact that man or the universe or anything possesses a specific nature.) [14]

A “subjectivist” is one who holds that reality (the “object”) is dependent on, or a creation of, human consciousness (the “subject”); and, as a result, that man need not concern himself with the facts of reality....
  ... Some hold that men’s perceptual experiences create (or sustain) physical objects; others, that man’s arbitrary opinions have the power to alter facts; still others, that men’s feelings are the aspects of consciousness that control reality. This last has always been the most popular form of subjectivism, and is implicit in all variants of the theory....
  In essence, therefore, subjectivism is the doctrine that men’s feelings ... are the creator of facts, and, therefore, men’s primary too of cognition. If men feel it, declares the subjectivist, that makes it so.
  The subjectivist denies that there is any such thing as “the truth” on a given question, the truth which corresponds to the facts. On his view, truth varies from consciousness to consciousness ...; the same statement may be true for one consciousness (or one type of consciousness) and false for another. The virtually infallible mark of the subjectivist is his refusal to say, of a statement he accepts: “It is true”; instead, he says: “It is true — for me (or for us).” There is no truth, only truth relative to an individual or a group — truth for me, for you, for him, for her, for us, for them.
  These common locutions reveal another fundamental aspect of the subjectivist’s position: his repudiation ... of Aristotle’s laws of logic. According to Aristotle, everything is something, it is what it is independent of men's opinions or feelings about it, A is A (the Law of Identify); according to the subjectivist, A does not have to be A, it can be whatever consciousness ordains. Aristotle declares: nothing can be A and non-A at the same time and in the same respect (the Law of Contradiction); the subjectivist replies: oh yes, it can, it can be A “for one” and non-A “for another.” Aristotle declares: everything is either A or non-A at a given time and in a given respect (the Law of Excluded Middle); the subjectivist replies: a thing can be both, or neither, or both-and-neither simultaneously, if that is how men feel.
  (On all these points, the advocate of objectivity endorses the Aristotelian position. He holds ... that reality exists external to and independent of human consciousness; that the function of the subject is not to create the object but to perceive it; and that knowledge of reality can be acquired not by consulting one’s feelings, but only by directly one’s attention outward to the facts.) [15] [Parentheses omitted in Kiefer’s text.]

Surely the point is sufficiently made. If we say, “Reality is whatever X and Y think it is,” then whenever X and Y disagree, the distinction between truth and falsity breaks down. If we say, “Reality is whatever X thinks it is” and X is a being subject to time and change, then X may believe a proposition today, and disbelieve it tomorrow, and again the distinction between truth and falsity breaks down. But if we say, “Reality is whatever X thinks it is,” and X is unique and timeless, so that there is no question of X’s sometimes believing one thing and sometimes another, then the distinction between truth and falsity does not break down, reality is not indeterminate, A is A, and all is well. (A pantheist like Hegel, on the other hand, believes that all thoughts are God’s thoughts, and therefore true. He accordingly denies the Law of Contradiction, with predictable results.) [16]

References
[Editor’s notes are in blue.]

* The title refers to Nathaniel Branden’s lecture “The Concept of God,” from his lecture series “The Basic Principles of Objectivism.” That lecture is fully transcribed in his book The Vision of Ayn Rand: The Basic Principles of Objectivism (Gilbert, Ariz.: Cobden Press, 2009), chapter 4. Partial and perhaps complete audios seem to be available throughout the Internet, especially here. See also R.A. Childs, “The Epistemological Basis of Anarchism,” Note 19.

[01] A. Rand, “What Is Capitalism?” 4/12/55ff. [References of this form refer to The Objectivist Newsletter, so that volume 4, number 12 would be December 1965. After volume 4, the name of the publication was The Objectivist. The page numbers for the latter are those of the original format, not those in the bound volume. In this case, the page number refers to the bound volume of the Newsletter, unlike other page references.] & CUI 22 [Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (New York: The New American Library, 1946-1966, page 14. (The page number James gives is to the paperback edition.)]
  The objective theory holds that the good is neither an attribute of “things in themselves” nor of man’s emotional states, but an evaluation of the facts of reality by man’s consciousness according to a rational standard of value. (Rational in this context, means: derived from the facts of reality and validated by a process of reason.)

  A. Rand, “What Is Capitalism?” 4/12/56e. [December 1965] & CUI 23 [Page 15 in the hardback edition.]
  If one knows that the good is objective — i.e., determined by the nature of reality, but to be discovered by man’s mind....

[02] A. Rand, AS 944d-i (1017aa-gg [hardback]).
  Thinking is man’s basic virtue, from which all the others proceed. And his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is that nameless act which you all practice, but struggle never to admit: the willful suspension of one’s consciousness, the refusal to think — not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know.

  AS 394x (418e-f, hb) & 396t-u (420f-g, hb) & N. Branden, “Emotions and Repression” 5/8/14. [August 1966. The passage was removed from The Psychology of Self-Esteem, where it “should” have appeared on page 86 of the paperback edition (New York: Bantam Books, Inc., 1971).]
  There are no evil thoughts except one: the refusal to think.

  N. Branden I.A.D.: “What is psychological maturity?” 4/11/53jj [November 1965]
  ... Objectivism holds that the act of thinking is the root of all virtue....

  VOS 25. [The Virtue of Selfishness, paperback edition (New York: Signet Books, 1961-1964), page 25.]
  Man’s basic vice, the source of all his evils, is the act of unfocusing his mind, the suspension of his consciousness, which is not blindness, but the refusal to see, not ignorance, but the refusal to know.

  A. Rand, “The Cult of Moral Grayness” 3/6/21cc and VOS 76. [paperback edition].
  There are many reasons why most people are morally imperfect, i.e., hold mixed, contradictory premises and values....

[03] AS 944vv-947R (1018gg–1021l). [The parallel passage in A. Rand, For the New Intellectual (New York: Signet Books, 1961) is on pp. 128–31.]

[04] A. Rand, WIAR 175. [N. Branden and B. Branden, Who Is Ayn Rand (New York: Paperback Library, Inc., 1964). Barbara Branden is quoting Ayn Rand. The passage occurs on page 176 of the paperback edition; page 220 in the hardback edition (New York: Random House, 1962).]
  “Evil, left to its own devices, is impotent and self-defeating.”

  AS 950ff-hh (1024hh-ii). [The parallel passage is in For the New Intellectual (pb), is on page 135.]
  Evil, not value, is an absence and a negation, evil is impotent and has no power but that which we let it extort from us.

  A. Rand, “The Anatomy of Compromise” 3/1/4ff. [January 1964. The parallel passage is in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (hardback), page 148.]
  The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles.

[05] N. Branden, “The Concept of God,” [in The Vision of Ayn Rand: The Basic Principles of Objectivism (Gilbert, Ariz.: Cobden Press, 2009), page 97. Also in the Atlas Society’s YouTube recordings, beginning at 14:42.]
  Observe that the attribute of omniscience is necessitated by the attribute of omnipotence.

[06] A. Rand, “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology” 5/11/4g [References of this form refer to The Objectivist Newsletter, so that volume 5, number 11 would be November 1966. After volume 4, the name of the publication was The Objectivist. The page numbers for the latter are those of the original format, not those in the bound volume.] and IOE 67. [Kiefer’s quotation is slightly off here; it should read “... his evasion of the evidence....” The passage is on page 49 of the monograph “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology” (New York: The Objectivist, Inc., 1966–67), page 51 in the Expanded Second Edition (New York: New American Library, 1990).]

[07] L. Peikoff, “Nazism and Subjectivism” 10/1/10d. [January 1971]
  Although strenuously protesting his devotion to objectivity, [Hegel] denies that there is any reality independent of mind, and claims that the physical world is a creation — or a projection — of an Absolute Mind, whose highest stage and expression is human consciousness.

  L. Peikoff, “Nazi Politics¸ 8/4/1e, 2c. [April 1969]
  Reality, declares Hegel, is inherently contradictory, it is a systematic progression of colliding contradictions....
  ... At that point, i.e., at the apex and climax of reality, it turns out, in Hegel’s view, that distinctions of any kind — including the distinctions between mind and matter, and between one man and another — are unreal (opposites are identical, A is non-A).

[08] A. Rand, “Intro. to Objectivist Epistemology” 5/1/4g & IOE 67. [James’s citation here is in error. The passage is in February 1967. In the monograph it is on page 70; in the Expanded Edition, it is on page 79.]

[09] N. Branden, WIAR 49. [Who Is Ayn Rand (New York: Paperback Library, Inc., 1964), page 49. The passage occurs in the hardback edition (New York: Random House, 1962) on page 56.]
  The name that Ayn Rand has chosen for her system is Objectivism.... In metaphysics, it is the principle that reality is objective and absolute, that it exists independent of anyone’s consciousness, perceptions, beliefs, wishes, hopes, or fears.... In epistemology, it is the principle that man’s mind is competent to achieve objectively valid knowledge of that which exists.

  FNI 22. [For the New Intellectual]
  ... that there is only one reality, the one which man perceives — that it exists as an objective absolute (which means: independently of the consciousness, the wishes or the feelings of any perceiver) — that the task of man’s consciousness is to perceive, not to create reality....

[10] A. Rand, “Introducing Objectivism” 1/8/35j-bb. [August 1962]
  In the space of a column, I can give only the briefest summary of my position, as a frame-of-reference for all my future columns. My philosophy, Objectivism holds that:
  1. Reality exists as an objective absolute — facts are facts, independent of man’s feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.

  FNI 22.
  Plato’s system ... with the physical world ... subordinated to a realm of abstractions (which means, in fact, though not in Plato’s statement: subordinated to man’s consciousness....

[11] A. Rand, “IAD: Who is the final authority in ethics?” 4/2/7f-k. [February 1965; the essay is also available on-line here, and is included in The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought (New York: Meridian Library, 1990), the quotation appearing on page 18]
  Objectivity is both a metaphysical and an epistemological concept. It pertains to the relationship of a consciousness to existence. Metaphysically, it is the recognition of the fact that reality exists independent of any perceiver’s consciousness. Epistemologically, it is the recognition of the fact that a perceiver’s (man’s) consciousness must acquire knowledge of reality by certain means (reason) in accordance with certain rules (logic).

[12] L. Peikoff, “Nazism and Subjectivism” 10/1/11e. [January 1971]

[13] A. Rand, “The Comprachicos” 9/9/6e. [September 1970]

[14] A. Rand, “IAD: Who is the final authority in ethics?” 4/2/7cc-ee [February 1965. See note 11 above.]

[15] L. Peikoff, “Nazism and Subjectivism” 10/1/3d, f, h, 9a-c, e. [January 1971; Where James has “infallible mark,” the original reads “infallible sign”]

[16] L. Peikoff. See Note 7 above.