Milton's refusal to give a straight answer to the geocentric / heliocentric debate may have a better rationale behind it than simple bet hedging. Milton consciously wrote Paradise Lost for the ages. He saw it as the great Christian epic following in the tradition of Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Tasso. The scientific questions concerning the universe were questions still hotly debated in Milton's time. If Milton had had Raphael explain exactly what God had done, and then, at some later date, that explanation was shown to be false, a serious flaw would exist in Paradise Lost — God would be incorrect. By having Raphael equivocate on the answer, Milton allows God to be eternally correct. God knows how he created the universe and how the solar system works, but he does not share that information with Man in Paradise Lost.
In the end, Milton's cosmos is one of the great imaginary cosmographies of Western literature. Almost as many depictions of Milton's cosmos exist as do of Dante's Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. It is a fictional world that presumes to represent the real world. As such, it is an achievement that is almost as impressive as the epic for which it was created.
