Paul ~
God blss you. i agree with all the scripture you have quoted. i have seen in my own life that yes, before Christ i was dead in spirit, did not truly know God (though i believed in Him, kind of). that i was very, very lost, and that nothing really of God's personal help or warnings shined through or went recognized.
i believe that only through the Person of Jesus, who is One with the Father, who alone truly knows God and has seen God, can one come to God. in Him, regardless, one will live and move and have their being. an one can have many ideas about what God is, and believe in His exstence. but to know Him and walk with Him is possible only through the Spirit, given uniquely to and through the Son, the Messiah.
yet Paul, what of these verses :
Jesus Himself declares in Matthew:7 that simply believing in the power of His name while failing to live out His commandments and truly live in Him and for Him is not itself enough. one must "do the will of His Father" to truly have a place in His kingdom. to be a Christian, to be, as Paul phrased it "a Jew circumsied in one's heart", to be a reflection of Christ Jesus. salvation is through faith, and yet faith without works, without a putting into practice of His teachings and commandments, is dead. (James 2:16-17)
a non-Chrstian can not be judged under the grace which comes from faith. so how will a non-Chrstian be judged? who, in Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan, did the will of the Father? the devout and kosher rabbi and lawyer, or the "unclean" and doctinally heretical Samaritan?