Gordon Clark: "Evangelicals, defined historically as those who hold to sola scriptura and sola fide, do not assert the truth of 2 Kings on the basis of Assyrian inscriptions; nor do they assert the truth of Satan and Michael, or David and Daniel, on the basis of archaeological or historical investigations. Evangelicals assert the inerrancy of the whole Bible on the ground of its own claims. The Biblical teaching is axiomatic. It is not deduced from previous external axioms. But this does not make evangelicals “conveniently blind.” They are very happy to face the “facts” of Assyrian inscriptions and other archaeological debris. But what they find in them is neither proof nor disproof of Biblical infallibility. What they find in them is ad hominem arguments discomfiting to the liberals – no more, no less. Of course, evangelicals have a priori axioms. The liberals also depend on indemonstrable assertions. Every philosophic system must have a starting point, or else it does not start. But sometimes the liberals talk as if they had discovered “facts” without starting from historiographical assumptions. …In the nature of the case archaeology never will be able to prove that the Bible is inerrant. Too many cultural or historical minutiae are beyond recall, not to mention the utterly foreign sphere of theological doctrine. But only an inerrant critic can expect to prove that the Bible errs.”
If you like Clark's school of thought, then they should be taken as axioms. If you do not, or if you don't think that philosophy is the best way to understand Reformation ideas. then they aren't necessarily axioms.
The Reformed are big on 'axiomatic' arguments, ever since Clark and Van Til. Unfortunately, these arguments simply don't work. You can pick as axiomatic whatever you like. If there's no proof or basis for it then it's just an arbitrary choice. Why can't the Roman Catholics (for example) pick the Apocrypha as axiomatic? Then you can neither prove nor disprove their position. They will view their position as true regardless of any arguments whatsoever to the contrary, and still regard their position to be just as true as before you began. Not sure where from Clark you're quoting this, but I wonder if Clark knows, that ad hominem syllogisms aren't arguments, but fallacies. Simply making an ad hominem argument would not only not prove your point, but expose the argument itself as a logical fallacy (the opposite of what Clark was trying to achieve). Proving that it is inerrant is a red herring: no science can prove or disprove a theological proposition. That's not science's goal. What science tries to do is provide, or show that they don't exist, natural arguments in favor of something. And science can certainly show natural arguments in favor of the Bible. The simple fact of showing that the Bible has more natural truths than the Koran (for example) will demonstrate that the Bible is truer than the Koran. The same logic can apply with everything else. The events described in the Bible were real, they happened, and we should have no problem showing that it is so.
Stalwart. You said "If there's no proof or basis for it then it's just an arbitrary choice". Actually, if there's no proof for something, it may still be either wrong or right. Maybe it's arbitrary, but on the other hand maybe it's axiomatic. One thing we know; it's not science. The process of science is one of narrowing the possibility of error, not of proving. Moreover, unless an assertion can be falsified, then it is definitely not science. Sola Scriptura does not pretend to be science. It asserts the Bible to be the very word of God, true and transcendent, just as it says in Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1. It always strikes me as odd when folks imagine man transcending his earthly realm but cannot fathom the transcendent, tangible, historical, real, knowable, readable, hearable, and immutable word of God. I know that's not a very professional way of describing the problem, but it's the way it grabs me. Tell me, when you read the Creeds, do they not strike you as quintessentially axiomatic statements of Truth; of the way things were in the Beginning, happened in history, etc.? How can you declare the Creeds and yet not say that Christianity is based on an axiom?
Correct, but you wouldn't know what it was (wrong or right). Yes and you wouldn't know if your axiom was true or not. A Muslim can pick the infallibility of the Koran as axiomatic, but what do I care about that? It's still false, wrong, earthly, and not heavenly at all, and it can be demonstrated. The Muslim can claim to pick it as 'axiomatic' aallllll day long, it won't matter. Problem with that is that other works also claim to be the historical, real, readable, hearable, word of God. There's a subtle difference between axioms and propositions. The Creeds consist of plain, direct, simple propositions about the truths of God and Revelation, but on the other hand they do not claim to be a logical system. Again, it helps to look at it from the other side: the Muslims can create equally simple and succinct phrases which would comprise the Islamic Creed, or whatever. The Creedal propositions would need to be more than just short, succinct, and comprehensive, to be a logical system. For one, they'd have to show how the next proposition follows out of the first, which they don't (and hadn't been meant to).
Actually, I think sola scriptura, which does not exclude ecclesiastical tradition, and especially sola fide are fundamental axioms for the Church.