Reliance on extrabiblical evidence is often equated with dependence on the alleged traditions of a group like Catholicism or Orthodoxy. But it doesn't make sense to equate extrabiblical evidence with tradition as those groups define it in any relevant way.
For example, all of our Bibles are based on many manuscripts produced by unknown individuals. There's no reason to classify those manuscripts as part of the Sacred Tradition of Catholicism or some equivalent in Orthodoxy. How we define the terminology used by the Bible, what we know about the surrounding historical context, and so forth are largely shaped by a variety of extrabiblical sources, including many archeological artifacts and documents that come from sources who didn't even claim to be Christian. Getting information from those sources isn't equivalent to depending on Catholic tradition, Orthodox tradition, etc. Even when we're assisted by one or more church fathers or what are commonly referred to as patristic documents, we aren't thereby relying on something like the Sacred Tradition of Catholicism or Orthodoxy. There's no reason to think the Didache, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Augustine, and other such sources were Catholic or Orthodox. Similarly, when a modern Catholic or Orthodox uses information found in Tacitus, an archeological artifact from an unknown Christian source, or a modern translation of a patristic document produced by a publisher outside his ecclesial affiliation, he isn't thereby violating his rule of faith, obligated to agree with the rule of faith of those sources, or any other such thing.
Related but slightly different: I was baffled when a friend told me that he is uneasy about the use of the term "natural law" in ethical discussion, such as statements that homosexuality can be seen to be wrong according to our innate knowledge of the natural law. That seems to me to be merely a paraphrase of what Paul says about that issue in Romans 1. But my friend said that he doesn't like calling that "natural law" because it seems too Roman Catholic. I was sort of astonished. To be clear, he wasn't arguing against my position on homosexuality, merely against talk of "natural law." Why can't Roman Catholics and non-Roman Catholics agree on something? After all, Paul says even the *pagans* know this somewhere deep down, so surely Protestants and Catholics can both say it.
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