Gisbert Greshake INTAMS review | Volume 14 | Issue 2 | Autumn 2008 | Pages 231 > 241 What is Life for? An Ineradicable Question, a New Attempt to Answer, and a Look at the Meaning of Marriage (Summary) The question about the meaning of life has always been a central question for humanity and is therefore at the basis of all religions as well. The answer given by the Christian tradition has various nuances but revolves around the following core idea: the human being has been created to fulfill God’s will, to endure and to follow through with it during his life, and to obtain heaven’s reward at the end. The article questions this type of answer and posits instead: the human being has been created to become, during his life time and by his freedom, ever more what he is from the beginning, namely an image of the Trinitarian and thus “communial” God, so as to become worthy of participating in the fullness of this divine life of communion forever. There are many ways of illustrating this programmatic destination of human life by referring to scriptural evidence; the article, however, refers to marriage as an exemplary concretisation: the sexual differentiation of male and female and the ensuing vocation to marital union is the most original, the most profound and the most radical answer to the question about the meaning of life since it is “inscribed” into the human flesh itself. Conjugal communion means to realise unity with the other in his/her otherness and thereby to become a “communial” human being, i.e. one who images God. The gift and the challenge of marriage are a school for life in which one learns to realise through the small things of everyday life what one is meant to be from the beginning and to become ever more what God has called one for: communio, to be realised in the unity of being one and of being other. In as much as the marital communio is the living cell and foundation of all forms of social life, it points beyond itself toward the goal of all creation: the Trinitarian perfection of all being. Gisbert Greshake, geb. 1933 in Recklinghausen (Westfalen), 1954-1961 Studium der Philosophie (Lic. phil.) und der Theologie (Lic. theol.) in Münster/Westf. und an der Päpstl. Universität Gregoriana in Rom; nebenher auch Studium der Kirchenmusik; 1960 Priesterweihe; 1961-1969 seelsorglicher Dienst in der Diözese Münster; 1966 Promotion zum Dr. theol. bei Prof. Walter Kasper in Münster; 1974 Habilitation und apl. Professor in Tübingen; vom 1974-1985 Professor für Dogmatische Theologie und Dogmengeschichte an der Kath. Theol. Fakultät der Universität Wien; ab 1985 Professor für Dogmatik und Ökumenische Theologie an der Theologischen Fakultät der Universität Freiburg i. Br.; seit 1999 emeritiert. Veröffentlichte ca. 40 Bücher und 600 Artikel zu den unterschiedlichsten theologischen, philosophischen und spirituellen Problemen. Letzte Buchveröffentlichungen: Der dreieine Gott: Eine trinitarische Theologie, Freiburg i. Br.: Herder, 52007; Gnade - Geschenk der Freiheit, Mainz 2004; Kleine Hinführung zum Glauben an den drei-einen Gott, Freiburg i. Br.: Herder, 2005; Priestersein in dieser Zeit: Theologie – pastorale Praxis – Spiritualität, Würzburg: Echter, 2005; Leben – stärker als der Tod: Von der christlichen Hoffnung, Freiburg i. Br.: Herder, 2008.