The exam expects you to reflect on the solution to the Problem of Evil & Suffering involving Process Theology. This includes the view that God is not responsible for evil and suffering, but he is a co-sufferer who cannot coerce the free will of human agents

Process Theology

Process theology was originally proposed by Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) then developed by Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000) - you may remember the very long-lived Hartshorne from the ontological argument.

Process theology differs from traditional Christian theology in many ways. It is clearly inspired by Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution, because it regards God as evolving too! According to Process Theology, God is connected to the physical world, not transcendent in the way that Thomas Aquinas believed.
The opposite of belief in a transcendent God is PANTHEISM, the belief that God is part of the physical universe. That's not quite what North and Hartshorne are saying. Process Theology is PANENTHEISM (notice the -en- in the middle!). Panentheism is belief in a God who is part of the physical universe AND exists beyond it. North and Hartshorne argue that God always needs a physical universe to act in, but that God is more than just the physical universe itself (for example, this universe might end and God would then create a new one, the way a person might change their clothes).
The Process God is EVERLASTING rather than transcendent or eternal - this sort of God doesn't have a beginning or an end, but he exists within time: he has a past and a future and, crucially, he can CHANGE.
The idea that God can never change is called IMPASSIBILITY and it is central to Aquinas' view of God. Process Theology rejects this in favour of a changeable God who reacts to things that happen in the universe. This sort of God would be (in certain senses) CONTINGENT, because some of his behaviour or feelings would depend on something outside himself.
The idea of a changeable God solves certain problems in theology:
  • A changeable God could react to prayers (because God might have been intending to do one thing but your prayers might change his mind)
  • A changeable God could guarantee human freewill (because he doesn't predetermine what humans will do)
  • A changeable God isn't entirely omnipotent, because other things can affect him
  • A changeable God can have a genuinely loving relationship with humans - because loving relationships are RECIPROCAL (both partners can change each other instead of one of them changing while the other stays the same)
  • A changeable God improves over time
This last point might seem odd - and it is odd from the traditional view of God as a perfect being. But Process Theology suggests that God is not (yet) completely perfect: he is journeying towards perfection, evolving into a perfect being, but hasn't attained perfection yet.
It is as true to say that God creates the World, as that the World creates God - ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD
You might see a link between God journeying towards perfection over the lifetime of the universe (or many universes) and John Hick's idea of the "vale of soul-making". According to Process Theology, God and his human creations are on a joint project, working towards perfection together - this is the PROCESS in Process Theology.
An advantage of this view of God as changeable and morally evolving is that it makes a certain sense of the Bible.
The Old Testament features God doing or ordering some morally unacceptable things:
  • God destroys two cities - Sodom and Gomorrah - including all the people living there and one woman who looked back to see it happen
  • God sends plagues upon Egypt, finishing with the killing of all the firstborn children
  • God orders the Israelites to invade the Promised Land of Canaan and kill the existing inhabitants without taking any prisoners
One of the most striking stories in the Old Testament is that of Noah (Genesis 5-10). At the start of this story, God regrets having created human beings because they have become so wicked.
The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled - GENESIS 6:6
So he destroys them all, except for one moral family. At the end of the story, God promises never to send another Flood and puts a rainbow in the sky as a reminder of this promise. This seems to be a changeable God who can regret things, change his mind, promise to be different in future. It also seems to be a God with a different moral standard to Jesus' teachings of unconditional love and forgiveness.
Many religious people struggle to reconcile the New Testament's God of Love with the Old Testament's cruel and vengeful God. Are they even the same being? Process Theology would say they are the same being but that God has changed, becoming more loving and forgiving through his interactions with the prayers and prophets of the people of Israel and eventually through Jesus Christ.
Traditional believers would say this is a simplification. The themes of love and mercy are there in the Old Testament too. Liberal Christians treat the violent and cruel passages in the Old Testament as symbolic because they don't think God would really kill or command the killing of innocent people.
A PROCESS THEODICY
Process Theology leads to a 'Process Theodicy' because it offers a solution to the problem of evil:
  • God is not omnipotent or moral perfect and so could not create a perfect universe - just a universe with the POTENTIAL for future perfection; this explains NATURAL EVIL
  • Similarly, he could not create perfect humans - just humans with the potential for perfection; this explains MORAL EVIL
  • Since God is imperfect, he sometimes causes evil and suffering - or fails to prevent evil and suffering
The God of Process Theology cannot abolish evil or prevent people from doing wicked things. He has to work through persuasion instead. Whitehead calls this the DIVINE LURE - God "lures" us to be better people, but cannot force us.
A criticism of this is that it isn't really a proper theodicy at all. A true theodicy justifies the existence of the traditional God of monotheism - the O-O-O God (with all his omni-characteristics) - in a world that has evil and suffering in it. Process Theodicy doesn't do this. Instead, it changes the definition of God and proposes a different sort of God who doesn't have the omni-characteristics. Then the problem of evil disappears, but not because it has been "solved" but because it only existed if God was supposed to be all-powerful and all-good.
J.L. Mackie recognises this in the introduction to his anthology essay, "Evil & Omnipotence" (1977) - he doesn't name Process Theodicy but he groups it under the "adequate solutions"
A more interesting criticism of Process Theodicy is that it proposes a God who isn't worth worshipping! However, supporters of Process Theology have some thoughts on that too...

God as a "Fellow Sufferer"

Process Theology argues that there must be "real relations" in God. A "relational" God is a God who can have real relations with other beings - who can love and pity, hold hopes and be disappointed, can condemn and forgive. The Bible often describes God in relational terms. When they recite the 'Lord's Prayer', Christians ask God to give them daily bread, forgive their sins, lead them away from temptation, deliver them from evil - this all sounds like a relational God.

In classical monotheism, God is non-relational because he is impassible: he cannot feel emotions or passions and cannot change. This means God is not moved by people's suffering. Anselm suggests that creatures feel the effects of God's compassion but that God feels nothing; Aquinas says that God is love because he "wills the good" of other creatures.

Process Theology argues that there are greater forms of love than just 'willing the good of the other'. Divine love should include sensitivity to the joys and sorrows of the beloved. This leads to Whitehead describing God as:
the great companion—the fellow-sufferer who understands - ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD
Whitehead argues that a relational God actually cares for humans, not in a detached philosophical way but sharing their joys and sorrows. Charles Hartshorne says that God:
rejoices in all our joys and sorrows in all our sorrows - CHARLES HARTSHORNE
This is the idea of a God who can suffer and feel pleasure - and therefore understands human suffering and pleasure. It links to Christian teachings because God suffers as Jesus, on the Cross, and is therefore part of all human suffering.

Other Christian thinkers have proposed similar ideas - for example, in a famous Christmas carol:
For he is our childhood's pattern. Day by day like us he grew.
He was little, weak and helpless. Tears and smiles like us he knew.
And he feeleth for our sadness.
And he shareth in our gladness.
- ONCE IN ROYAL DAVID'S CITY
Or this quote from the unusual Christian thinker, George MacDonald:
The Son of God suffered unto death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like His - GEORGE MACDONALD
MacDonald's quote treats Jesus as a sort of role mode of perfect suffering; you could link this view to that of John Hick and Irenaeus whose soul-making theodicy has some similarities to Process Theodicy,
Some Process Theologians argue that a relational God is morally superior to a detached, unfeeling God, if if the relational God is weaker in terms of sheer power. They contrast "relational power" with "unilateral power". Unilateral power is the power of a king who controls his subjects without being affected by them. Most people would feel that a ruler who is not changed or affected by the joys and sorrows of his subjects is actually a tyrant. Process theologians argue that, rather than being unaffected and unchanged by the world, God is the being most affected by every other being in the universe
Relational power takes great strength ... It requires the willingness to endure tremendous suffering while refusing to hate. It demands that we keep our hearts open to those who wish to slam them shut. It means offering to open up a relationship with people who hate us, despise us, and wish to destroy us - BOB MESLE
Process theologians point out that, by dying on the Cross, Jesus showed relational power - as did moral leaders like Martin Luther King and Mohandas Gandhi. Process theologians like David Ray Geffen argue that a relational God is MORE worthy of worship than an all-powerful but unilateral God.
Do these solutions justify belief in God?
YES
Process Theology replaces the incoherent and morally-unattractive God who is impassible and unilateral in power with a God who loves his creatures, suffers alongside them and evolves over time. Such a God is not discredited by evil and suffering in the Bible or in real life.
Process Theology solves the Problem of Evil by suggesting that God is in a RELATIONSHIP with human beings and can share their sufferings but cannot prevent them. Having a "fellow-suffering who understands" is a better religious belief than an all-poweful but unfeeling being who refuses to intervene.
NO
The Bible declares God's unchanging nature: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). The Bible is clear that God's plans do not change according to the whims of men (Psalm 33:11). But process theology does not consider the Bible to be inspired.
Process Theology only solves the Problem of Evil by changing the definition of God. The God of Process Theology is too weak to answer prayers and cannot even be viewed as the Creator of the Universe; he is not a saviour-God and there's no room in such a religion for faith through revelation.