The grammar of 運命にある > > They are all destined to die. Also a similar sentence from this post: > 2 The meanings are clear but I can't quite understand how the grammar is working here. How should I understand ? The closest I can get is "to exist in a destiny" i.e. "They all exist in a destiny which is to die". I'm not sure if the solution is grammatical or cultural. In English we 'have' a destiny so I would maybe have expected something like **** **** . Would this be wrong? When Japanese people think of destiny do they think of living in/through it, rather than having it as an attribute?

I think is treated as an (abstract) place here. We can safely say ("to be **in** a situation where ") or ("to be **in** a state where "), so and should not be that illogical.

This is a literary version of "(for a human) to be/stay (for some time)":

* May the force be with you
* i-adjective modifying (eg )



We rarely say because is almost a set phrase.