Cloutier 1 Authenticity and Salvation History in the Spiritual Exercises: Formulating an Ignatian Personalism 1. Introduction In a world devoid of objective meaning the human person must reclaim their absolute autonomy to create utterly individual, subjectively valid values. Moreover, since the grand narratives of antiquity and modernity dissolve when the chaotic vicissitudes of time are scrutinized, these meta-narratives of the past must be disbelieved in order to create unique narratives that actually arise from the individual human person’s experiences. These tenets of existentialism and postmodernism pose a formidable challenge to the Spiritual Exercises (SE) of Ignatius of Loyola. In contrast Ignatius himself saw the world and its history as an ordered whole governed by God that is suffused with meaning. Every human person finds fulfillment by living up to their part assigned by God in salvation history, the real drama of creation and redemption unfolding through the history of the Church. In order to evaluate the SE in its contemporary context, Ignatius of Loyola’s view of the human person in history must be put to the test by existentialist and postmodernist theories. Rather than excluding subjectivity, Ignatius grounds the diversity of personal narratives within the transcendent objectivity of salvation history. In place of the self-determined isolated individual, the human person discovers the fullness of life within the relationality of the created universe in the context of ecclesial communion. Moreover, in response to existentialism and postmodernism a new synthesis of Ignatian personalism can be achieved by incorporating phenomenological intuition, natural teleology, and real potential into a personal ontology [structure of being]. In so doing, Ignatius’ fundamental insights on authentic conversion to God are rediscovered in their full life-changing capacity.