A being has maximal excellence in a given possible world W if and only if it is omnipotent, omniscient and wholly good in W; and

A being has maximal greatness if it has maximal excellence in every possible world.

It is possible that there is a being that has maximal greatness. (Premise)

Therefore, possibly, it is necessarily true that an omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good being exists.

Therefore, (by axiom S5) it is necessarily true that an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good being exists.

Therefore, an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good being exists.

Tommy, a 26-year-old former circus performer, lives on a caravan park in Gloversville in upstate New York, where he spends his days alone and confined to a shed, watching cartoons and nature programmes on television.

His lawyer, Steven Wise, says this is no kind of life for a human. The problem? Tommy is a chimpanzee.

This week, however, in what is believed to be the first court case of its kind, Mr Wise will argue that Tommy and other chimps are entitled to “legal personhood”. The Boston-based lawyer, who is also the president of animal advocacy group the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP), hopes a New York appeals court will rule that Tommy has been unlawfully imprisoned, and ought to be released to live among other chimps at a sanctuary in Florida.

Keeping Tommy alone in a cage is just like keeping a human in solitary confinement, says Mr Wise, who has spent much of his career attempting to extend human rights and protections – such as freedom from captivity – to other intelligent animals.

The NhRP purports to be “the only organisation working toward actual legal rights for members of species other than our own.” Its mission, according to its website, is “to change the common law status of at least some non-human animals from mere ‘things,’ which lack the capacity to possess any legal right, to ‘persons’.”

Tommy’s lawsuit has already been lost in lower courts, but Mr Wise is appealing the case, based on a legal mechanism that was historically used on behalf of slaves. “As a matter of both liberty and equality,” Mr Wise has said, “Tommy should be seen as a person.”

In a 65-page legal brief, the NhRP cites several specialists, such as the British primate expert Jane Goodall, to argue that chimps are “autonomous, self-determined, self-aware, highly intelligent, and emotionally complex beings who suffer from imprisonment.” As such, the animals fit the legal profile of a “person”. “Person is not a synonym for ‘human being’,” the brief explains, “but designates an entity with the capacity for legal rights.”

Should Tommy win his case, it could lead to broader rights not only for chimps and their fellow primates, but also for other intelligent animals such as elephants, orcas and dolphins. Mr Wise told Reuters, “The next argument could be that Tommy... has the right to bodily integrity, so he couldn’t be used in biomedical research.”

Tommy’s owner, Patrick Lavery, has declined to present his case to the appeals court in Albany, but has said previously that the chimp had been on a waiting list for a primate sanctuary for three years, and that his current home was in fact a state-of-the-art $150,000 (£93,400) enclosure. Last year, Mr Lavery told the Albany Times Union that Tommy has “got a lot of enrichment. He’s got colour TV, cable and a stereo... He likes being by himself.”

In December, Mr Wise will present a similar case to an appeals court in Rochester on behalf of Kiko, a chimp who lives in less-than-salubrious conditions in Niagara Falls.

The NhRP is expecting a decision from the appeals court in a few weeks’ time.

1. The Church should stop treating women as second-class people, and not just in family issues. Women should have the same rights and privileges as men in the Church. We can only dream that one day there will be a Pope Frances. At this point, women cannot even be priests.

2. It’s time to end the Church’s celibacy requirement for priests and nuns. While promoting natural law, the Church fails to acknowledge how unnatural celibacy is. Here’s a novel idea: Shouldn’t priests be viewed as role models with families, rather than as unquestionable messengers who act as necessary intermediaries to God?

3. The Church should give high priority to eliminating family poverty caused by having too many children. Provide evidence-based sex education for young people, especially since abstinence-only programs have such a high failure rate. Permit abortion under some circumstances and encourage contraception. Pregnant teenagers are not ready to start families of two and are likely to drop out of school. Education for women is a primary method of reducing poverty.

4. The Church should recognize that masturbation is not a sin. It is natural and healthy safe sex, giving harmless pleasure to individuals without leading to unwanted pregnancies or venereal disease.

5. Regarding gays, Pope Francis, move away from “Love the sinner, but hate the sin.” If two responsible and mature people love each other, are in a committed relationship, and would like to marry, you should be willing to bless such a union. And please stop telling people that the purpose of marriage is to have children, since you sometimes perform marriages for heterosexual couples who are incapable of having children.

6. Please recognize that it is degrading to have celibate male priests passing themselves off as experts on sexual advice for women, men, and children. Male leaders in the Catholic Church are obsessed with sex. Morality should not be viewed through the narrow prism of sexual conduct. Ethical and moral behavior is about treating everyone with respect. If there is any issue that is none of the Church’s business, it is the private sexual acts of consenting adults. Church leaders claim to be humble, but their treatment of women and people who don’t share their antiquated beliefs is the height of arrogance.

7. Don’t expect those outside the Catholic faith to behave like those in the faith. Stay out of politics and don’t prevent others from following the dictates of their conscience.

A man went to a hotel and walked up to the front desk to check in. The woman at the desk gave him his key and told him that on the way to his room, there was a door with no number that was locked and no one was allowed in there. She explained that it was a storeroom, and that it was out of bounds. She reminded him of this several times before allowing him upstairs. So he followed the instructions of the woman at the front desk, going straight to his room, and going to bed.

However, the insistence of the woman had piqued his curiosity, so the next night he walked down the hall to the door and tried the handle. Sure enough it was locked. He bent down and looked through the wide keyhole. Cold air passed through it, chilling his eye. What he saw was a hotel bedroom, like his, and in the corner was a woman whose skin was incredibly pale. She was leaning her head against the wall, facing away from the door. He stared in confusion for a while. Was this a celebrity? The owner's daughter? He almost knocked on the door, out of curiosity but decided not to.

As he was still looking, the woman turned sharply and he jumped back from the door, hoping she would not suspect he had been spying on her. He crept away from the door and walked back to his room. The next day, he returned to the door and looked through the wide keyhole. This time, all he saw was redness. He couldn't make anything out besides a distinct red color, unmoving. Perhaps the inhabitants of the room knew he was spying the night before, and had blocked the keyhole with something red. He felt embarrassed that he had made the woman so uncomfortable, and hoped she had not made a complaint with the woman on the front desk.

At this point he decided to consult her for more information. She sighed and said, "Did you look through the keyhole?"

The man told her that he had and she said, "Well, I might as well tell you the story of what happened in that room. A long time ago, a man murdered his wife in there, and we find that even now, whoever stays there gets very uncomfortable. But these people were not ordinary. They were white all over, except for their eyes, which were red."