Now Moroni does begin to shift his line of reasoning. Moroni understands that while God is a God of miracles, man is not always a man of Faith. There is a relationship between the quantity of miracles that we see in our lives and the faith that we have that God will provide them. When mankind departs from the way of God, that essential connection between faith and miracle is broken, and the great miracle of atonement remains, but the smaller miracles appear to abate. This is a situation that would be very present on Moroni’s mind as he was in a position to be a personal witness to the tremendous contrast between the God of miracles and the man of unbelief.
To Moroni had come the ministration of the miraculously preserved three apostles (Mormon 8:11), who were by this time over four hundred years old, no mean miracle at all. Even greater than that, the Savior himself has appeared to Moroni (Mormon 8:35). Moroni knows that God continues to be a God of miracles because he has seen them. However, he has also seen his people fall away from the paths of God, and certainly miracles ceased among them. The small miracles of temporary defeats of the invading Lamanites were temporal and temporary. The result was the absence of any miracle at all in the destruction of the Nephites. No wonder this is a poignant argument for him.