Is Heidegger an Atheist?

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Heidegger believes that a God is a being whose existence transcends our own and therefore we do not have the ability to understand it so unlike this “Being” we are limited. Because of this when we say that God is the most powerful being even we are holding God to the highest of our esteem we are still limiting him with our own human capacity, which God surpasses. To my understanding, what Heidegger’s main approach to God is that if we claim to understand his existence and know who God is, he is not the real God because God is a being that we do not have the ability to grasp and give value to even if were giving him the most value we have the capacity to give something because God is a “Being” that surpasses our capacity.

Due to the fact that Heidegger challenges established beliefs such as the belief in God as we know it, some have said that he is a nihilist. However I would not say that he could be classified as a nihilist because he argues against nihilism in this paper. He argues that modern society today is under nihilism that we ourselves created by assuming that anything that goes against our established beliefs is nihilism simply because it is different from what we have been thought to believe. Because of this I don’t believe Heidegger to be is a nihilist, he is just someone who asks questions and while I may not agree with everything he says I do not believe that he poses arguments simply for the sake destroying established beliefs, which is what nihilism is.