It's what the scribes and the pharisees did that the RCC does today...made up "traditions" outside of God's Holy Word that created a heavy burden on the people they were in charge of.
But you don't name any "traditions". All Sacred Traditions compliment Scripture with no contradictions and until you prove otherwise, your just making forum flatulence.
It is your tradition to redefine Tradition into a dirty word. Scripture never does that.
Many Protestants (especially anti-Catholic ones) hold, by and large, the view that Scripture and sacred, apostolic tradition are somehow unalterably opposed to each other and, for all practical purposes, mutually exclusive. This is yet another example of a
false dichotomy which Protestantism often (unfortunately) tends to create (e.g., faith vs. works, matter vs. spirit). The Bible, however, presupposes tradition as an entity prior to and larger than itself, from which it is derived, not as some sort of “dirty word.”
It is one thing to wrongly assert that Catholic tradition (the beliefs and dogmas which the Church claims to have preserved intact passed down from Christ and the apostles) is corrupt, excessive and unbiblical. It is quite another to think that the very
concept of tradition is contrary to the outlook of the Bible and pure, essential Christianity. This is, broadly speaking, a popular and widespread variant of the distinctive Protestant viewpoint of
sola Scriptura, or “Scripture Alone,” which was one of the rallying cries of the Protestant Revolt in the 16th century. It remains the supreme principle of authority, or “rule of faith” for evangelical Protestants today.
Sola Scriptura by its very nature tends to pit tradition against the Bible.
First of all, one might also loosely define tradition as the authoritative and authentic Christian history of theological doctrines and devotional practices. Christianity, like Judaism before it, is fundamentally grounded in history: in the earth-shattering historical events in the life of Jesus Christ (the incarnation, miracles, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, etc.). Eyewitnesses (Lk 1:1-2, Acts 1:1-3, 2 Pet 1:16-18) communicated these true stories to the first Christians, who in turn passed them on to other Christians (under the guidance of the Church’s authority) down through the ages.
Therefore, Christian tradition, defined as authentic Church history, is unavoidable.
Many Protestants read the accounts of Jesus’ conflicts with the Pharisees and get the idea that He was utterly opposed to all tradition whatsoever. This is false. A close reading of passages such as Matthew 15:3-9 and Mark 7: 8-13 will reveal that He only condemned
corrupt traditions of men, not
tradition per se. He uses qualifying phrases like “
your tradition,” “commandments of
men,” “tradition of
men,” as opposed to “the commandment of God.” St. Paul draws precisely the same contrast in Colossians 2:8: “See to it that no one makes a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit, according to
human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and
not according to Christ.”
The New Testament explicitly teaches that traditions can be either
good (from God) or
bad (from men, when against God’s true traditions). Corrupt pharisaic teachings were a bad tradition (but many of their legitimate teachings were recognized by Jesus; see, e.g., Matthew 23:3). The spoken gospel and the apostolic writings which eventually were formulated as Holy Scripture (authoritatively recognized by the Church in 397 A. D. at the council of Carthage) were altogether good: the authentic Christian tradition as revealed by the incarnate God to the apostles.
The Greek word for “tradition” in the New Testament is
paradosis. It occurs in Colossians 2:8, and in the following three passages:
1 Corinthians 11:2 (RSV) . . . maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you. (NRSV, NEB, REB, NKJV, NASB all use “tradition
”).
2 Thessalonians 2:15 So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter.
2 Thessalonians 3:6: Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is living in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us.
Note that St. Paul draws no qualitative distinction between written and oral tradition. He doesn’t regard oral Christian tradition as bad and undesirable. Rather, this false belief is, ironically, itself an unbiblical “tradition of men.”
When the first Christians went out and preached the Good News of Jesus Christ after Pentecost, this was an oral tradition proclaimed by “word of mouth.” Some of it got recorded in the Bible (e.g., in Acts 2) but most did not, and could not (see John 20:30; 21:25). It was primarily this oral Christian tradition that turned the world upside down, not the text of the New Testament (many if not most people couldn’t read then anyway). Accordingly, when the phrases “word of God” or “word of the Lord” occur in Acts and the epistles, they almost always refer to oral preaching, not to the written word of the Bible. A perusal of the context in each case will make this abundantly clear.
Furthermore, the related Greek words paradidomi and paralambano are usually rendered “delivered” and “received” respectively. St. Paul in particular repeatedly refers to this handing over of the Christian tradition:
1 Corinthians 15:1-3
1 Thessalonians 2:13
Jude 3
Far from distinguishing tradition from the gospel, as evangelicals often contend, the Bible equates tradition with the gospel and other terms such as “word of God,” “doctrine,” “holy commandment,” “faith,” and “things believed among us.” All are “delivered” and “received”:
Read more here.
You complain of Catholic teaching on sexuality and marriage based on ignorance and prejudice; you don't even cite official Catholic teaching because you are either too lazy or trained in bigotry,
so you have to make stuff up based on lies that you swallow down whole. Such behavior is unbecoming of anyone claiming to be Christian. Same goes for this evil thread title.
