What Galileo should have said

The big theological problem that Galileo's opponents had for Galileo wasn't the (not very convincing) biblical arguments that the sun moves and the earth stands still, but a theological objection to Galileo's inference from (a) the greater simplicity of the Copernican hypothesis over its competitors and (b) the fact that the hypothesis fits the data to (c) the truth of the Copernican hypothesis. The theological objection, as I understand it, was that Galileo was endangering the doctrine of divine omnipotence, since if there is an omnipotent God, he can just as easily have made true one of the less simple hypotheses that fit the data. (And, indeed, an earth-centered system can be made to fit the data just as well as a sun-centered one if one has enough epicycles.)

What Galileo should have said is that his argument does not, of course, establish the Copernican hypothesis with certainty, but only as highly probable, and that his argument had the form of the well-established theological argument ex convenientia, or from fittingness: "It was fitting for God to do it, God was able to do it, so (likely) God did it." Such arguments were widely given in the Middle Ages for theological views such as the immaculate conception of Mary. The application is that it is fitting for God to do things in the more elegant Copernican fashion, an omnipotent God was able to do things in such wise, and so (likely) God did it. Not only would the argument form have been one that Galileo's interlocutors would have been familiar with and friendly towards, but Galileo would have the dialectical advantage that he could not be reasonably said to be challenging divine omnipotence if his own argument depended on it. (Maybe Galileo did say something like this. I've seen the use of the argumentum ex convenientia in astronomy attributed to Kepler. Maybe Kepler got it from Galileo.)

And, to be honest, I think that all science is essentially founded on arguments ex convenientia. Which are good arguments.