No Proof = No Knowledge

[Darkstar]

I get the sense that he is saying the statement itself cannot be "empirically proven in order to be true," hence it defines a requirement that it cannot itself satisfy.

I don't think that everything need be proven empirically to be true. We can easily and reasonably exclude normative rules (e.g. logic) and philosophical arguments from the realm of the empirical (in the strictest sense, though we might observe the effects of following said normative standards to see if they achieve the desired result, which is technically empirical). However, the claim that a god, a sentient being that supposedly affects the physical world, would not require empirical proof is absurd.