Relying solely tradition means you can’t make up new bs every generation. Look at the difference between 3rd Century and 9th Century Christianity. Both bizarre and neoplatonic but in completely different ways. That’s why sola scriptura (and by extension the entire modern historical/critical mindset) was formed, the world needed orthodoxy, continuity, stability from generation to generation. It worked but the result for the branches of Christianity that adopted it is something far more dry than what came before.