South Korean scientist YoungHoon Kim, 36, who says he holds a world-record IQ score of 276, has reignited a long-running debate by insisting that God not only exists—but that the case can be made using mathematics.
Kim, an AI researcher and entrepreneur who also holds a theology degree from Seoul’s Yonsei University, frequently shares posts arguing that science supports belief in God and that a divine “first cause” sits at the beginning of the universe.
In a viral Instagram post dated December 11, he put it bluntly: “God is real 100 percent and Jesus is God.”
Alongside those claims, Kim has suggested that faith in Jesus is linked to greater intelligence, creativity, and success. His comments have also drawn controversy, including statements that Jesus will return within 10 years and that homosexuality is a sin.
His “three simple facts” argument
In one of his most-watched posts, Kim shared a three-minute YouTube video outlining what he calls a mathematical demonstration of God’s existence. He builds his case around three ideas:
1) A beginning point is required.
Kim argues that, in geometry, a line can’t exist without an initial point. He extends that analogy to reality itself: because the universe exists, he says it must have had a starting point—something that set everything in motion.
2) An infinite past can’t be “crossed” to reach the present.
He claims that if time stretched backward endlessly with no beginning, reaching “today” would be impossible. To illustrate the idea, he compares it to trying to count down to zero if you started at negative infinity—there’s no first number to begin from.
3) Growth implies an outside source of power.
Kim then points to multiplication, arguing that repeatedly multiplying by one leaves you stuck at one forever. For something new and larger to emerge, he says, a greater force must have acted from outside the system.
From these points, Kim concludes that the best explanation is a “first cause”—one that is necessary, powerful, timeless, and intelligent—which he identifies as God.
“Only Jesus is the smartest”
Kim’s recent posts go beyond arguing for a creator. He has repeatedly described Jesus as God in human form and has portrayed Jesus as intellectually superior to every major scientific figure.
In November, he wrote: “No Einstein. No Newton. Only Jesus is the Smartest Man in the History of the World.”
Other high-IQ figures and the afterlife question
Kim isn’t the first person known for extreme intelligence to speak publicly about the divine.
Chris Langan, a 73-year-old American horse rancher who has been reported to have a very high IQ, has also claimed insight into what happens after death. Langan developed a hypothesis he calls the Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe (CTMU), which he says connects mind and reality.
Langan has argued that death is not an endpoint but a shift—where consciousness, or the “soul,” transitions to another dimension within a broader computational structure of reality. He has also dismissed traditional visions of heaven and hell as overly simplistic, suggesting the afterlife is better understood as a different state of being.
Kim has echoed a similar theme, writing: “If reality is part of something bigger, then death is not the end, but a transition.”
He has also referenced ideas from quantum physics, noting that information is often described as changing form rather than disappearing—then tying that to consciousness: if the mind is “quantum information,” he suggests, it could persist after the body is gone.
