The spiritual man, regenerated by God's grace, is likewise aware of good and evil, and now has the will, desire and ability to choose good.
You can agree with Rome all you want - that our good work of faith is what saves us.
But Rome is wrong. Faith is a result of regeneration by the Holy Spirit, not a requirement for it. Of course we must believe in order to be saved, but that belief is God-given. As Paul asks, who made us to differ and what do we have that we were not given?
The Catholic Church has a lot to say about faith:
Faith is a personal act - the free response of the human person to the initiative of God who reveals himself. But faith is not an isolated act. No one can believe alone, just as no one can live alone. You have not given yourself faith as you have not given yourself life. The believer has received faith from others and should hand it on to others. Our love for Jesus and for our neighbor impels us to speak to others about our faith. Each believer is thus a link in the great chain of believers. I cannot believe without being carried by the faith of others, and by my faith I help support others in the faith.
Through the centuries, in so many languages, cultures, peoples and nations, the Church has constantly confessed this one faith, received from the one Lord, transmitted by one Baptism, and grounded in the conviction that all people have only one God and Father.
Faith is a personal adherence of the whole man to God who reveals himself. It involves an assent of the intellect and will to the self-revelation God has made through his deeds and words.
"To believe" has thus a twofold reference: to the person, and to the truth: to the truth, by trust in the person who bears witness to it.
We must believe in no one but God: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Faith is a supernatural gift from God. In order to believe, man needs the interior helps of the Holy Spirit.
"Believing" is a human act, conscious and free, corresponding to the dignity of the human person.
"Believing" is an ecclesial act. The Church's faith precedes, engenders, supports and nourishes our faith. The Church is the mother of all believers. "No one can have God as Father who does not have the Church as Mother" (St. Cyprian, De unit. 6: PL 4, 519).
We believe all "that which is contained in the word of God, written or handed down, and which the Church proposes for belief as divinely revealed" (Paul VI, CPG # 20).
Faith is necessary for salvation. The Lord himself affirms: "He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned" (Mk 16:16).
"Faith is a foretaste of the knowledge that will make us blessed in the life to come" (St. Thomas Aquinas. Comp. theol. 1, 2).