John Locke's Tabula Ras British Enlightenment

Tabula Rasa John Locke was a British Enlightenment despot and physician born on August 29, 1632. He made a huge impact on the Enlightenment, which lead to many democratic revolutions. His contributions were recorded in his series of books titled Essay Concerning Human Understanding. In Book I of the series he introduced a new theory that is referred to as “Tabula Rasa” (blank slate). This theory states that everyone is born without the innate tendency to do good or evil and is free of all instincts. According to this theory, the external forces, during ones upbringing is what shapes their character. Additionally he emphasizes that everyone is born equally. Although there are many brilliant scientist and philosophers that chastise this theory,
According to both Judaism and Christianity every human has the right to choose freely without the interference of God. If one could not choose himself to be evil why does he deserve to be punished for evil actions? Although, God might know what the final result might be, he still doesn’t take away our right to make decisions our selves. The Jewish approach attempts “to reconcile an omnipotent and all-knowing God with man’s power over his actions as the only justification for receiving either reward or punishment” (Frenkel) by giving God the power to predict the future but still provide us with the freedom to make our own choices. There is one contradiction in Judaism about being born innate. In the book of Genesis 6:5 it states, ”And the Lord saw that the evil of man was great in the earth, and every imagination of his heart was only evil all the time.” This statement favors Locke’s opinion that humans are born with an innate evilness. However, Rav Hirsch brilliantly resolved this contradiction. He twisted the statement to say that the evil of the man was not the evil that he was born with but instead the evil that he had done during his