For Heidegger the “ontological difference” between being and beings is prior to Western metaphysic’s distinction between existentia (that a thing is) and essentia (what a thing is). In its unique, temporal-ecstatic ek-sistence, human Da-sein transcends all beings by its understanding of being. According to Heidegger, Western metaphysics has forgotten being in favor of beings because of the epochal (historical) withdrawal of being itself. Even the metaphysical concept of God as the “supreme being” has been substituted for the question of being, which is never asked. See M. Heidegger, “What Is Metaphysics?” in Basic Writings, pp. 95-112,190-242; Identity and Difference, pp. 61 f., 128 ff.; Heidegger, Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning), trans. P. Emad and K. Maly (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), pp. 145-55,176-87.