All Protestant reformers began as Catholics fully affirming the primacy of tradition over scripture -- and yet from that system comes all the splits of the major protestant groups from the Catholic church.
That is not how I see it. For the first 1,000 years the Church held together under three principles like three legs in a stool - scripture, tradition, and the magistereum. Except for a few heretical that are no longer with us (Gnostics, Arians, etc) they pretty much stayed together. True the Church split in around 1000 AD in the Catholic Church and the Orthodox churches. That was because Orthodox churches saw only scripture and tradition, which caused division among the Orthodox Churches. But in the West, the Catholic Church for the next 500 years remained unified under scripture, tradition, and the magisterium. The Reformers immediately broke from those those methods of determining the truth - to one one, sola scriptura. And then splits immediately started up like rabbits. If the splits were caused by the Catholic then why did they not happen earlier?
Question for you is why should the non Catholic Church resort to a method that has been proven not to work and that contradicts scripture itself?
That is begging the question. I do not believe that the Church contradicts scripture itself. In fact, I think that Protestants inherently contradict scripture itself. The Reformers preached sola scriptura but without one verse in the NT that teaches sola scriptura, not even the passage you cited in Mark 7. So if the Reformers are right then they would be wrong! If everything must be in the Bible in order to be believed, and that idea of everything must be in the Bible in order to be believed is not in the the Bible, then that idea that everything must be in the Bible in order to be believed should not be believed.
Not only this, but if the Mark 7 passage that you cited taught sola scriptura, or other verses taught sola scripture, then all of Christianity would have to be invalid. The scripture that Jesus and the apostles were referring to was the Jewish scriptures. If they taught sola scriptura then we should all march to the nearest synagogue and convert to Judaism, since Jesus and the apostles would have then taught sola OLD TESTAMENT scriptura.
Mark 7:6-13
6 He answered and said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written:
‘This people honors Me with their lips,
But their heart is far from Me.
7 And in vain they worship Me,
Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’
8 For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men—the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do.”
9 He said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition. 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’ 11 But you say, ‘If a man says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is Corban”—’ (that is, a gift to God), 12 then you no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother, 13 making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down. And many such things you do.”
A clear example condemning man-made-tradition - via the method of "Sola Scriptura" testing
Not so clear. Everything they received from Moses was handed down from generation to generation, even the Ten Commandments. Tradition means what was handed down. True, God did literally dropped the Ten Commandments from the sky, but even that was handed down. So even what was written down initially was handed down from generation. They had no printing press. Jesus was not condemning tradition. He was condemning BAD tradition, tradition that came from only mere men versus from men inspired by God.
Here is an example where the NT upholds oral tradition. Matthew 2:23 quotes from the Old Testament prophets, saying "He shall be called a Nazarene", and this was fulfilled by Jesus with His family fleeing to Nazareth. BUT THERE IS A HUGE PROBLEM! There is not one verse in the Old Testament where this verse can be found. Check your Bible concordance! You will not find it! Google this quote. Only the verse in Matthew will show up! I read the Protestant explanations for the absence of this verse in the OT and it is laughable. Check out the Protestant commentaries and see if they make any sense at all. There all say something about Jesus taking a Nasaritic vow. See if that makes sense to you. It does not to me.
It is difficult to get away from the fact that Mathew was meaning that the coming Messiah would live in Nazareth. And if Matthew meant a written verse in the OT then obviously he was wrong or lying! Either way, the New Testament would have errors in it! YIKES! But the Catholic has a simple explanation that still upholds biblical inerrancy. The Word of God was not only written but was passed down orally. The Jews treated this oral teaching as part of the Word of God, and so did Matthew. Matthew 2:23 did not say "This fulfilled what a prophet has written..." but said "This fulfilled what a prophet has SPOKEN...". Matthew quoted something that was within the Jewish oral tradition that the Jews took as coming from God. And Matthew also took it as coming from God. So the quote "He shall be called a Nazarene" was from the good tradition, not the bad tradition - even though it was handed down orally from generation to generation. So Jesus could not have been condemn all oral tradition, but only tradition that originated from men and not from God.
