By the end of the third century, the dogma of Christ’s deity and his distinctness from the Father was firmly established. Three hypostases, Father, Son, and Spirit, existed in the divine being. This was accepted doctrine both in the East and in the West. . . . The foundation had been laid, and the boundaries within which Christian speculation was to test its strength had been marked off (Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 1, 127).