Locke Book I- No innate idea of God

In arguing against the innateness of an idea of God, Locke is not trying to disprove the existence of God. He is rather arguing that any knowledge or concept of God is derived from people who, using their reason correctly, "thought out the causes of things, and traced them to their original" (p.90) He says that the idea of God is clearly not innate for a few reasons. First, there are entire cultures of people around the world that do not have any clear concept of God. Second, there are cultures which are polytheistic and worship many Gods, and Locke says "What true and tolerable notion of a Diety, could they have, who acknowledged, and worshiped hundreds?"(p.93) The third reason given is that among peoples who do have a notion of God, the difference in these notion across various cultures (and within the same culture) is so great that they are clearly not the same notions of God. There are even those who have a notion of God but deliberately reject it- atheists. Locke believes that the idea of God is one that any rational person who gives time and thought to understanding the world would come to. For Locke, God chose to give us the faculties of understanding rather than an innate idea. To those who believe that since God is good he must have imprinted on the hearts of man an idea of himself, Locke says: "it seems to me a little to much confidence of our own wisdom, to say, I think it best, and therefore God hath made it so." (p.91)