And now we're arguing semantics. But to say God sees us as not worth saving but in his mercy he does save us would make God irrational. Better to say we cannot achieve salvation through our own merit. When we follow the laws there is no gain as that is what is required, what we should be doing. But when we sin there is loss. We need forgiveness an mercy to get us back to even.

The key elements in human thinking are not numbers but labels of fuzzy sets. -- L. Zadeh

Which explains a lot.