BTW to me is if it is not in scripture it can not be doctrinal . The historic creeds are scripitual..so I can adopt them easily...Now the Mormons have a negative test.. they say if you can not disprove it with the bible it is true..thus they have a heavenly mother making spirit babies because the bible does not say it is so..
The Reformed position takes neither the RCC position or the modern Evangelical position. The RCC adds tradition to the Apostolic tradition. The modern Evangelical removes all tradition including the Apostolic tradition and forms their own 'understanding' and makes that the tradition.
One has to understand that during the Patristic period most of the teachings on doctrine were through oral presentation. This did not preclude the Patristic writers from demanding a thorough scriptural foundation to the oral traditions passed down by the Apostles. The council of Trent added that special revelation of God was not contained within scripture alone. This is thoroughly repudiated by early Patristic writers. For example:
Tertullian says:
"We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith."
Church historian, Ellen Flessman-van Leer affirms this fact:
For Tertullian Scripture is the only means for refuting or validating a doctrine as regards its content...For Irenaeus, the church doctrine is certainly never purely traditional; on the contrary, the thought that there could be some truth, transmitted exclusively viva voce (orally), is a Gnostic line of thought...If Irenaeus wants to prove the truth of a doctrine materially, he turns to Scripture, because therein the teaching of the apostles is objectively accessible. Proof from tradition and Scripture serve one and the same end: to identify the teaching of the church as the original apostolic teaching. The first establishes that the teaching of the church is this apostolic teaching, and the second, what this apostolic teaching is.
The modern Evangelical independent Bible-believing only Christian, OTOH, wishes to divorce themselves from all tradition pretending to take a non-presuppositionalist approach to the Bible. This on its face is a silly proposition. How can one divorce themselves from their 21st century understandings and sinful nature? In their zeal to protect the Bible from 'man-made' traditions they fail to understand that tradition simply means teaching. In this way then they refute themselves by teaching a tradition of anti-tradition.
The Reformed position is that all scripture is to be interpreted based strictly on the Apostolic tradition. This necessitates a presuppositional approach that does not include the baggage of a 21st century understanding. The Reformed tradition does not refute any 'teaching' that supports the Apostolic tradition. If the 'teaching' supports the Apostolic tradition then that teaching is correct. Thus, we accept the creeds as the correct teachings of the Apostolic tradition. To say their is no Apostolic tradition is to be ignorant.