Richard Kearney is Professor of Philosophy at University College Dublin and Visiting European Professor at Boston College. He is the editor of eleven volumes and the author of thirteen books, including Postnationalist Ireland, Poetics of Modernity and Modern Movements in European Philosophy.
In order to show that evil is not a substance implanted in the universe but a punishment (poena) for human sin (peccatum), Augustine invents a new category, “nothingness” (nihil ).