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Exchange of Ideas. In addition to editing the Jesuit quarterly Theologica Studies for 26 years and writing a show er of articles on dozens of facets of life, Father Murray published five books. Most notable: We Hold Thesi Truths, which expounds the idea that the American structure of church-state relations is more congenial to Roman Catholic thinking on the subject than any other such structure in history; and The Problem of God, which contrasts the Old Testament question "Is God our God?" and the medieval question "What is God like?" with modern man's "new will actively to oppose God."
It was through personal contact that John Courtney Murray wielded much of his large intellectual influence. Thin and towering (6 ft. 4 in.), long-faced to the point of looking sad (which made his witty, self-depreciating smile all the more engaging), he possessed an intellectual charity and unfailing courtesy that ideally suited him to guide the exchange of ideas between peers of widely disparate persuasions.
This, in fact, was the assignment given him in the spring of 1966 with his appointment as director of the John LaFarge Institute. Founded in 1964 by the editors of the Jesuit weekly, America, the institute brings together leaders from many sectors of society and the full spectrum of religious belief for off-the-record discussions of al most any and all subjects—religious liberty, racial discrimination, censorship, abortion, the population explosion, business and political ethics, religion and the arts, war and the anti-war movement.
Dialogue between serious men about serious things was for Father Murray the sine qua non of civilized society. The end in view was not agreement but the kind of understanding that honest disagreement presupposes. "Disagreement," he would often say, "is not an easy thing to reach." This, he felt, was society's protection against the confusion spread by the barbarian perpetually at the gates.
The city was John Courtney Murray's symbol of civilized society, and in writing about it, he once unconsciously described himself: "The cohesiveness of the city is not hot and humid, like the climate of the animal kingdom. It lacks the warmth of love and unreasoning loyalty that pervades the family. It is cool and dry, with the coolness and dryness that characterize good argument among informed and responsible men."