Teleology of exercise
For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things,
having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.
This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation.
This is a rather ironic Bible verse with which to start an article promoting exercise. I include it as a reminder - bodily exercise is not itself virtuous. As Christians, we strive towards various ends: love; heaven; union with God; truth; beauty. (All of these are essentially the same, but never mind that.) So the way that we can get to bodily exercise being a virtue is by proving that it ultimately brings us to a virtuous end.
I learnt the word teleology a few weeks ago, and am writing this article as my first experiment with the teleological framework. For those of my readers who aren’t familiar with the word teleology, let me share what I have learnt about it.
Teleology is a study of purpose (telos). When we do an activity, we always have an immediate goal (in Greek, the skopos): “I am going for a run, so that I can do well at my 5k next week.” But we also have an ultimate end (in Greek, the telos): “I am going for a run, so that I … and become a more disciplined person.”
The teleology of an activity is the way our immediate skopos with it brings us to our ultimate telos. As Abba Moses tells us in the first Collation of St John Cassian, to pursue our telos, we first start with a skopos:
Good, you have spoken cleverly of the telos. But what should be our skopos, by constantly sticking close to which we can gain our telos, you ought first to know.
So, to analyse bodily exercise through a teleological framework, we should start by looking at our skopos. Let me propose three to you, and show how each can be teleologically virtuous in the Christian life.
Taking care of our bodies
The most fundamental skopos of exercise is to take care of the body God has given us.
Fr. Justus Pokrzewinski, shown in the photo above, once told me “I don’t need physiotherapy, I go walking and my joints feel great!” He then strapped on his sun goggles, put on his winter beanie, and went off for his hour-long walk. He has gone on daily walks for decades and, at the age of 92, looks like a younger man. Clearly, Fr. Justus’s skopos is to take care of his health.
Taking care of the health God has given you leads to a gratitude towards God. It leads to a responsibility over the body of which God has given you care. Either telos is clearly a virtuous teleology of exercise. After all, as Christians, we know that we are not only souls, but also bodies.
All of us can use Fr. Justus’s teleology of exercise! God has given us a body with life and physical health. Each of us has differing degrees of this (perhaps a paraplegic and an Olympic triathlete will both read this article). But we are called to be grateful for the gift God has given us, and to take responsibility for our care over it.
The Church explains it beautifully in the Catechism:
2288. Life and physical health are precious gifts entrusted to us by God. We must take reasonable care of them, taking into account the needs of others and the common good. …
2289: If morality requires respect for the life of the body, it does not make it an absolute value. It rejects a neo-pagan notion that tends to promote the cult of the body, to sacrifice everything for its sake, to idolize physical perfection and success at sports. …
2290. The virtue of temperance disposes us to avoid every kind of excess: the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco, or medicine.
To take care of our body requires temperance and, for most people, it also requires bodily exercise. Bodily exercise has grown in importance in our sedentary age. The majority of people throughout history didn’t need to voluntarily do bodily exercise. Why would a Mesopotamian farmer do pull-ups when he was pulling a plough all day?
But there have been times in history where bodily exercise was popular. For example, when the vocation of soldiering demanded it. Which brings us to the next teleology:
Fitness for our vocation
The most common immediate goal of exercise is to grow in physical fitness. Think about the true meaning of the word ‘fit’ for a second. It doesn’t mean having a six-pack or being able to run a marathon. After all, it also refers to ‘fitting’ clothing, or survival of the ‘fittest.’ Fitness means ‘being suited to.’
What is physical fitness as a skopos of bodily exercise, then? To get ourselves suited to the physical tasks of our vocation.
Fr Ryan Rooney, shown in the photo above, used to be so overweight that he struggled to get up and down stairs and found it difficult to get his clothing on. This made it hard to travel to people in need around his parish, made it a struggle to celebrate the Mass. He was direly unfit for his vocation. So he got into spin biking, through the skopos of physical fitness, and was ultimately led to the telos of being more capable of his vocation. That sounds like a good teleology!
The teleology of physical fitness doesn’t always take place in such an extreme situation. Most people are, to some extent, physically unfit - if cleaning your house for a whole morning tires you out, or if you find it difficult to carry your child around, your vocation is limited by physical unfitness. Furthermore, bodily exercise can help most people to achieve their ultimate end by improving focus, mental aptitude, and energy levels. So, the teleology of physical fitness is a widely applicable motivation for bodily exercise.
But what if your job keeps you fit enough to stay healthy and to do everything you need to do? Is it then a sin to do bodily exercise? No! Yet another teleological understanding of bodily exercise makes it attractive to work out:
Practising our hobbies
Turning bodily exercise into the practice of a hobby is another common immediate goal in the teleology of exercise.
I never used to do bodily exercise because I hated most of the sports I tried. If you’re not naturally good, it takes a lot more work to engage in a hobby, and a lot less work to waste time! But when you find sports you enjoy, and do them more often, they get easier and more enjoyable every day.
It is this learning curve that separates hobbies from “time-wasters.” Writing this blog has gotten a lot more fun as I’ve gotten faster at it. Drawing, reading, listening to classical music, each gets more enjoyable as you improve at them by regular practice. Clearly, physical activities like walking, playing basketball, or doing push-ups, progress up a learning curve and show themselves to be hobbies.
In our modern era, we have a lot of time-wasters. I could watch TV for four hours this evening and blow all my leisure time without having practised a hobby at all.
Fr. Stephen Gadberry, shown in the photo above, has a tattoo on the inside of his left bicep telling us to do the opposite of waste time. It is a quote from St Ignatius of Loyola that reads “age quod agis,” “do what you are doing.” He also said that the reason he participated in American Ninja Warrior was to show the nation a happy, healthy, and joyful priest, and he also enjoys cycling, archery, and Cross-fit. Fr. Stephen’s skopos of bodily exercise is to age quod agis, to practise his hobbies, rather than wasting away the hours of the day.
Isn’t it much better to use our leisure time on bodily exercise, with the skopos of practising our hobby? This brings us to various virtuous teloi: becoming disciplined, sharing joy in a community, developing skills. Most importantly, practising a hobby instead of wasting time helps us to be grateful for the time God has given us.
So, practising a hobby is a virtuous teleology of exercise.
One little point on this teleology. You don’t have to ever get good at your hobby. This is not the telos of the Christian. If Angela Merkel practises basketball with the same sense of gratitude for the time God gave her as Lebron James, she may be just as teleologically virtuous at basketball. The modern Olympics were founded in recognition of this understanding of the virtue of hobbies, and their founding father, Pierre de Coubertin, said it well:
The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.
Vicious teleology
Of course, there are not only virtuous teleologies of exercise, there are also vicious teleologies. If you are motivated by a vicious teleology, not only are you not growing as a person, you are also less likely to feel satisfied with or motivated by your bodily exercise. So it’s good to do some self-reflection!
We can examine whether our teleology of exercise is virtuous by questioning the skopos further and further until we get to the telos.
Somebody might claim that their skopos of weightlifting is physical fitness, with the telos of growing in the strength needed to be a good community member. But he spends more time thinking about his six-pack than his ability to lift a couch. Something has gone wrong - his telos is vain, and his teleology is vicious.
Somebody else claims that she enjoys playing netball with her friends, and strives towards the telos of growing in community. But she gets angry when called out for contact, and is willing to play the rules fast and loose to win. Clearly, her telos is to beat others, and she has a vicious teleology.
I won’t go further on this. But if you reflect on bodily exercise and see that your teleology is disordered, you have changes to make!
Other teleologies
I have presented you with three virtuous teleologies of exercise:
Taking care of our health, to take responsibility of the body God gave us.
Growing in fitness, so that we can fulfil the vocation to which God calls us.
Practising a hobby, to use gratefully the time God has given us.
Hopefully, reading this article was a good demonstration of what teleology is, and hopefully it motivated you to exercise in a virtuous way.
Do you have other virtuous teleologies of exercise? Or other thoughts on how teleology can solve lifestyle problems?