Pierre Maury was Karl Barth’s ‘French connection’ and friend. Without Maury’s thinking and writing on a reformulated Reformed doctrine of predestination, Barth’s turn, and 
own treatment of predestination (as exemplified in his Church Dogmatics II/2) may never have happened; at least not in the shape that it did. Here is Maury on a critique of the classical Augustinian inspired doctrine of election/reprobation (especially as that developed within what came to be called Post Reformed orthodox Dogmatics in the 16th and 17th centuries, respectively):
Before we proceed further, there is an important point which must be made clear. If what we have said is true, it is obvious that the decree of election—call it predestination here, if you will—is not, as classic theology has maintained, from Augustine to Luther Calvin and the orthodox dogmatic theologians of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, the obscure and impenetrable decision of a divinity who does not, on this point, reveal his designs. It was because they asserted that the absolute decree of the Creator, anterior to any creation—and even to any fall, as the Supralapsarians held—was the unknowable secret of an absolute power, that predestination frightened even those who defended it with the most unflagging ardour. There was Calvin, for instance, whom the ‘labyrinths’ of this mystery filled with a kind of holy terror. How can it be otherwise, if we know and can know nothing of the motives which lie behind God’s creative activity, if the liberty with which he loves us is replaced by the arbitrary decision of pure omnipotence? How can such a God of the covenant, appear in that eternity (and so in time, in which his purposes are worked out) as anything but a capricious tyrant; not the God of grace but the wielder of a crushing power who is worshipped only in terror? How is one to be sure that it his will to save the lost?
Of course I do not wish for a moment to detract from the mystery of God’s sovereign liberty. He wills to act only in accordance with his good pleasure (Phil. 2.13), but is a good pleasure. His entire revelation tells us so, tirelessly. There is nothing higher than his goodness, nor anterior to it. God loves always, from all eternity. And his purpose, before which, and outside which, there is none other, is to ally his life with the life of men in mutual love. Often, moved by their adoration of the divine majesty, the great predestinarian doctors—especially Calvin—have exalted the mystery of the absolute decree. But why have they turned it into a mystery as impenetrable as night, the secret of an opaque God? God does not live and act in the obscurity of eternal darkness, but in light—‘unapproachable’, yes, but light! Darkness and night are, in the Bible, the abode of the Devil, in which he plans and prepares his ‘works of darkness’. If there is any tyrannical power that would victimize man, it is he, not the Father ‘who hath delivered us from the power of darkness’ (Col. 1.13), and ‘hath called [us] out of darkness into his marvellous light’ (I Peter 2.9).
If it is necessary, then, to maintain the mystery of election—and it is absolutely necessary, for God’s freedom is the sovereign liberty of the Creator, which our liberty may neither dispute nor judge: ‘O man, who art thou that repliest against God?’ (Rom. 9.20)—it is only on the basis of knowing and preaching that this mystery is none other than the peace that passes understanding. It is unfathomable because the love of God is unfathomable. And the only act of adoration God expects of us is our wonder at a purpose that overwhelms us.[1]
If the reader is aware of Barth’s own reformulation of a Reformed doctrine of predestination, what we just read from Maury should ring familiar to you.
Whether reading Barth, Torrance, Maury et al. the theme remains the same: for them, respectively, to think a doctrine of predestination (election/reprobation) in abstraction from a purposeful ground in Jesus Christ, is to not think a genuinely Christian, and thus biblical doctrine of predestination. This is the crux of it all: i.e., how someone arrives at their relative conclusions in regard to a doctrine of predestination, have directly to do with the theory of revelation (and authority) they affirm. If they are committed to a principled revelational understanding of knowing God, they will look something like Maury on a doctrine of predestination. If not, and they hold to a principled speculative and negative understanding of knowing God, they will look something like Thomas Aquinas, and his respective heirs in the Post Reformed orthodox development.
The issue, ultimately, comes down to a very practical and spiritual one. The way we think God determines all subsequent doctrinal developments. If we think God’s will toward us remains hidden in some sort of ‘horrible decree’ of election/reprobation, then we will have good reason to live in an unhealthy fear of Him. If we believe that God has fully Self-revealed Himself for us in the face of Jesus Christ, in a filial relationship of triune love, then we will have a healthy fear and love of the Father. This will latterly shape the way we engage with and treat others; both within the Church and world.
For further reading on Pierre Maury and his theology, especially as that relates to Barth’s own developing theology, see: Simon Hattrell’s exquisite book: Election, Barth, and the French Connection, 2nd Edition: How Pierre Maury Gave a “Decisive Impetus” to Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Election.
[1] Pierre Maury, Predestination and Other Papers (Richmond, Virginia: John Knox Press, 1960), 35–6.