Our Trinitarian friends tell us that God is three divine persons who all share the same essence.  Therefore, they say, God can speak or be described with either singular or plural pronouns.  The Trinitarian’s go-to example for this alleged phenomenon is Genesis 1:26-27, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

See there! they tell us, God is three persons, and that is why he says “let us” with a plural pronoun; but God is only one essence, so he is also described with the singular pronoun “he.”  It makes a weird kind of sense at first glance: God is multiple persons, but these multiple persons speak and act as one person.

Let’s just pretend for a second that this doctrine is true and scriptural.  Let’s think about what Trinitarians are saying based on logic and the Bible.  There is another place in the scriptures where multiple persons speak and act as one person—

And Judah said unto Simeon his brother, Come up with me into my lot, that we may fight against the Canaanites; and I likewise will go with thee into thy lot. So Simeon went with him.  Judges 1:3

In this verse we see two tribes, Judah and Simeon, using singular pronouns to speak to one another.  Just to be clear, by this time in Israel’s history the tribe of Judah had 76,500 people in it (Numbers 26:22) and the tribe of Simeon had 22,200 (Numbers 26:14).  And yet, we see all of these thousands of me speaking and acting as one man with singular pronouns.  The tribe of Judah says, “Come into my lot (not our lot), and I (not we) will go into thy lot (not y’all’s lot).”  Simeon went to help him (not them).

Except for the number of persons involved (three versus thousands), this situation is exactly like what Trinitarians say about God.  Judah is a tribe of multiple persons speaking and acting as one person.  God is a trinity of multiple persons speaking and acting as one person.  Is this what Trinitarians mean?—God is multiple persons who use singular pronouns, just like Judah is multiple persons who use singular pronouns?  If so, Trinitarians have a major problem on their hands.

Nobody in their right mind would suggest that all those multiple persons in Judah were one human.  So how can our Trinitarian friends say that that the multiple persons in the Godhead are one God??  Are Trinitarians suggesting that the Father, Son, and Spirit are one God, just like those 76,500 men of Judah were one tribe?  If this is what our Trinitarian friends mean, then they have fallen into polytheism.

Is God a group of divine beings, like Judah is a group of human beings?  Is Jehovah a group of gods, like Judah is a group of men?  Those are not two different questions: they are the same question, worded differently.  You can’t say “yes” to the one and “no” to the other.

If you treat the Trinity like a tribe, then you believe in multiple gods.