This is to Nehemiah as well.
I'd like to see this in the way you do, and I use to, but there is solid Scripture to the contrary.
We are dead. Born spiritually dead. There is no way around this. We weren't "mostly" dead. dead is dead.
Ephesians 2:1 New King James Version (NKJV)
By Grace Through Faith
2 And you
He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,
Ephesians 2:5 New King James Version (NKJV)
5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
Matthew 8:22 New King James Version (NKJV)
22 But Jesus said to him, “Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”
Here Jesus is saying let the spiritually dead bury the physically AND spiritually dead!
Now we see that we are not even capable to understand spiritual matters until we hear the Gospel, and the faith THAT GOD GAVE US is activated:
1 Corinthians 2:14 New King James Version (NKJV)
14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know
them, because they are spiritually discerned.
And of course, this is the final nail that confirms the faith we have to believe unto Salvation comes directly from the Lord.
Ephesians 2:8-9 New King James Version (NKJV)
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and
THAT not of yourselves;
it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.
The THAT in the verse is referring to the faith immediately preceding it. Also, Grace INTRINSICALLY is a gift, so there is no reason to point out that is not of yourselves.
So we cannot boast saying "I have the faith to believe, I conjured it up in my own strength".
And as I look back on my own Spiritually journey. I can see there was no way I was going to come to the Lord on my own. It was ALL of Him. Drawing me, activating faith when my brother told me the True Gospel, NOT the stuff I heard in Catholic school.
So I don't know how we can conclude that the saving faith we have is ANYTHING but a gift from God.