Locke Book 1: Why is God not innate?

Locke’s definition of God is stated on page 46 in Book 1 chapter 4. He states, “God…to express a superior, powerful, wise, invisible Being…must necessarily spread it far and wide and continue it down to all generations.” Thus, the idea of God is passed down from generation to generation. A little bit later he writes on how the idea of God can come about in an individual’s head, “…If a colony of young children should be placed in an island…their apprehensions would be as far removed from any name or notion of a God, till some one amongst them had employed his thoughts, to inquire into the constitution and causes of things, which would easily lead him to the notion of God.” Locke a little later goes into how God is not imprinted in the human mind or is not “stamped on the mind”. If it were, then, the notion or idea of God would be the same across cultures or to every person and it is not. He claims that certain people do not have rational ideas of God. When they explain what God is it is immature and not of truth. Thus, God has not given us an idea of him, but rather he has given us “faculties” that we can use to find out about God through experience with the external world. On page 49 he says, “It seems to me plainly to prove, that the truest and best notions men had of God were not imprinted, but acquired by thought and meditation, and a right use of their faculties; since wise and considerate men of the world, by a right and careful employment of their thoughts and reason, attained true notions in this as well as other things.” And lastly concerning God he says, “If the idea of God be not innate, no other can be supposed innate.”