John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

In John Locke’s ‘An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” he explains the limitations associated with human understanding and knowledge. Locke tries to convince the reader that everything is taught and there is no knowledge you are born with or innate knowledge. Others that disagree with Locke may mention god and claim it is god that provides this innate knowledge. This would mean that a newborn child would have a mindset of its own which Locke disproves.
In an effort to strengthen his claims Locke explains why god cannot provide innate knowledge. On page 14 Locke states “the term worship stands for is not in the understanding of children”. Locke is saying that a child cannot understand the meaning of the word worship, yet as that child ages it will worship. At birth the child did not know what it meant to praise god but it was taught how to do so and this allowed it to be able to do so. If the child has innate knowledge it would be able to worship and understand the concept of god at birth and this is not the case.

Locke is saying that everything that a person know is because they were taught and not because it was “natural”. On page 4 of the text Locke states “children are idiots and have no thought”, what Locke means by this is that a child does not have ideas of its own. In order for a child to no longer be an idiot and have thought it must have a source to learn from. This supports Locke’s ideas of nothing being innate. A child needs to be taught in order to function effectively in society. Without this teaching a child would just remain an