Of the three next interrelated sections, the longest is on faith. In Mormon 1:13, Mormon had described the wickedness of his people: “But wickedness did prevail upon the face of the whole land insomuch that the Lord did take away his beloved disciples and the work of miracles and of healing did cease because of the iniquity of the people.” His congregation was aware that miracles were not happening any longer, and they likely wondered why not.
Mormon mentioned this problem three times, in verses 27, 29, and 35, in which he asks three rhetorical questions. In verse 27, he asked, “Wherefore my beloved brethren, have miracles ceased because Christ is ascended into heaven?” The people were apparently arguing that the Savior was living up in heaven and had distanced himself from them. Mormon countered in verse 29 with his second question: “And because he hath done this [ascended into heaven], my beloved brethren, have miracles ceased? Behold I say unto you, Nay; neither have angels ceased to minister unto the children of men.” As part of his evidence that miracles had not actually ceased, he taught the importance of angels and their mission, their ministry of calling people to repentance and seeing that the covenants of God are fulfilled.
After that brief clarification, he asked the same question again in a sequence of reasoning. Verse 35 Mormon again asks: “If this be the case that these things are true which I have spoken unto you, and God will show unto you, with power and great glory at the last day, that they are true, and if they are true has the day of miracles ceased?” Mormon explained that it was not because of their theories, but that it was because of the iniquity of the people, because of lack of faith. In verse 37, he concluded that, “It is by faith that miracles are wrought; and it is by faith that angels appear and minister unto men; wherefore, if these things have ceased wo be unto the children of men, for it is because of unbelief, and all is vain.” Mormon uses questions here very effectively. In many cases, a good question is indeed half the answer, which is expressed in a German adage as: Gute Frage ist halbe Antwort.
Mormon also had spoken, in his earlier historical description, about the Holy Ghost being withheld. Mormon 1:14 declares, “And because of this iniquity there were no gifts from the Lord and the Holy Ghost did not come upon any.” Here one sees the contemporaneous problems, and the basis on which he builds his preaching. If miracles were to cease, and they had, verse 38 warns, “Awful is the state of man.”
Yet Mormon also made it clear that it was not God, or his angels, or the Holy Ghost who had ceased to appear or to work with humans here on earth. Again, he asks three more rapid-fire questions to show that God will not withhold his power so long as “there shall be one man upon the face of the earth to be saved” (7:36). (That reference to “one man upon the face of the earth” may well have haunted Moroni as he wandered as a lone survivor for many years upon the land.) Mormon also encouraged his audience by explaining that he knew that they could be faithful (7:37) and meek, and that they (and also we) could thus be “fit to be numbered among the people of his church” (7:39).