The Worldview Diving Board Analogy

The diving board analogy illustrates the difference between Christian and humanist worldviews.

The analogy works like this:

• The diver represents man.
• The tip of the diving board is the starting point for modern, humanist reasoning, which only considers what can be seen and analyzed from that point.
• The water is reality, which man attempts to understand from his vantage point.
• The diving board's anchor to the ground represents the unacknowledged foundation of a worldview (in this case, God and the Christian framework of knowledge).

The analogy suggests that humanists act as if they are floating on the tip of the diving board, ignoring the necessary foundation that makes their position possible. Van Til argues that Christians must not accept the humanist starting point but instead expose the entire "diving board" and its anchor, showing that all knowledge and reality are ultimately rooted in God.

Romans 1:20 KJV states: "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse."

ref.  Chalcedon | All or Nothing | Martin G. Selbrede

There is a reason, then, that Van Til doesn’t go toe-to-toe with the enemy over a given fact without first confronting the enemy’s “philosophy of fact.” Which is to say, Van Til wants to know how they manage to stand over the pool water, toes curled on the tip of the board, without uttering a peep about the rest of the diving board and how it is anchored to the ground to permit the diving board to stretch over the pool. It is the Christian position that accounts for all these elements, while the humanists wear blinders and demand all men everywhere do the same.