The following excerpts are taken from Paul M. Edwards, Preface to Faith: A Philosophical Inquiry into RLDS Beliefs (Midvale, Utah: Signature Books, 1984), showing the then-RLDS (now COC) belief in creation ex nihilo not ex materia, as well as how they depart from a material conception of “spirit” and an embodied God:
Creation also
impinges on the question of change: what was the material stuff of creation?
Our answer is that God created “out of nothing.” Nothing here simply
means not-god. If something existed prior to creation and in the beginning
(that is, eternal with God), then obviously God is not the only independent
existence. That something is coeternal with God. (p. 28)
For the RLDS, God is
clearly the creator. In the beginning nothing existed other than the will of
God which, we suppose, included the elements. That is, the will of God—or
perhaps God—included what the scriptures call elements and term “eternal.” All
things were created in a moment of time—a moment at which the creation
occurred. (p. 38)
The RLDS position
acknowledges that the immaterial substance called God is personal. (p.
45)
Blake T. Ostler, Out of Nothing: A History of Creation ex Nihilo in Early Christian Thought
Daniel O. McClellan, James Patrick Holding refuted on Creation Ex Nihilo
Lynn Wilder vs. Latter-day Saint (and Biblical) Theology on Divine Embodiment