Sometimes our children go on to do amazing things, but most of them don’t grow up dreaming of a career in astronomy. William Maillis, an 11-year-old prodigy, has set out to disprove Stephen Hawking’s claim that God does not exist.
William Maillis may have appeared to be a typical infant — until he began forming complete phrases at the tender age of a few months. His father predicted that William would become even more successful than he was. William Maillis, a Pennsylvania native, consistently stood out from the crowd. William had an arithmetic aptitude at the age of 21 months. He was reading children’s books and doing multiplication by the time he was two. William, who didn’t find reading satisfying, even composed a nine-page short fiction titled “Happy Cat.”
Academic Prowess and Ambitions
At the age of four, William began studying Greek, algebra, and sign language. At age five, he devoured nearly 200 pages of a geometry textbook in a single sitting. He was working on circumferential problems the following day. William turned nine in May of 2016, and he graduated from high school. In the fall of 2017, William enrolled at Carnegie Mellon University.
A Blend of Faith and Science
William’s parents instilled in him a strong Christian faith in his early life. Peter Maillis is a Greek Orthodox priest and William’s dad. William wants to become an astrophysicist so that he can utilize science to advance his beliefs. He hopes to refute the work of Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking by demonstrating God’s existence through scientific means.
Proving God Through Science
William Maillis is attempting to convince the scientific community that God exists. Former member of The Hawking Triumvirate, Stephen Hawking once remarked, “Before we understood science, it was natural to believe that God created the universe, but now science offers a more convincing explanation.” William counters this by stating, “I want to be an astrophysicist so that I can prove to the scientific world that God does exist.”
He believes that it takes more faith to deny God’s existence than to believe in it. According to William, the idea that the cosmos spontaneously generated makes less sense than the idea that something created the universe. He asserts that believing the universe came into being all by itself requires greater faith than believing it was created by something other than itself.
A Bright Future
William’s determination to utilize his intelligence to glorify God is admirable, and he recognizes his intelligence as a divine gift. “I was gifted with knowledge, science, and history,” William claims. Despite his impressive academic achievements, his parents insist that William is just a “normal” kid. He enjoys a wide variety of media, including video games, sports, gadgets, and TV series.
William’s prospects are excellent. If his history is any indication of his future success, he will achieve great things and teach many others. Eventually, he might be the one to show scientific atheists how, contrary to their beliefs, science actually helps us understand God.
